• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
• /
• v.8 no.6
• /
• pp.963-969
• /
• 2013

This study aimed to examine the relationships between demographic characteristics, health, and internet addiction factors and drug uses among the Korean high school students. The 2009 Korean Youth Health Risk Behavior On-line Survey data was used for this study. It selected 73,238 cases of junior and senior high school students from the raw dataset and conducted a secondary data analysis. Frequency analysis and chi-square test were conducted for this study. Gender, living with parents, economic status, school level, academic record, subjective health status, subjective well-being, level of stress, level of depression and internet addiction were significantly associated with their drug uses. Findings may be used for developing strategies to cope with drug uses among the Korean high school students.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.261-268
• /
• 2001

Recently, social concerns about addiction problems not only to substances like alcohol and drug but also to gambling or internet have been increasing. Addiction is caused by a combined influence of biological, psychological. and social factors. However, addiction may also occur due to weak will-power or poor education on addiction. Even though addicted behavior provides temporal mood change such as euphoria, satisfaction. or relaxation. it leads to serious physical and mental disorder of the addicted person and its family members, which possibly results in fatal consequences. Nurses are in an environment to meet and take care of those who are addicted or vulnerable to addiction in order to help the clients to recover or to prevent people from addiction. Despite the importance of nurses role in addiction problems, there is a lack of consistency of addiction is often interchangeably used with other similar concepts in the society. In this study, a concept analysis of addiction was performed to more clearly and comprehensively understand addiction and to develop effective nursing intervention methods for addicted clients. The analysis is conducted according to a series of processes described by Walker and Avant. The defining attributes of addiction identified in this study are as follows: 1) existence of object 2) control loss 3) withdrawal symptoms 4) continued use despite adverse consequences.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.121-130
• /
• 2008

Methamphetamine, a commonly used addictive drug, is a powerful addictive stimulant that dramatically affects the CNS. Repeated METH administration leads to a rewarding effect in a state of addiction that includes sensitization, dependence, and other phenomena. It is well known that susceptibility to the development of addiction is influenced by sources of reinforcement, variable neuroadaptive mechanisms, and neurochemical changes that together lead to altered homeostasis of the brain reward system. These behavioral abnormalities reflect neuroadaptive changes in signal transduction function and cellular gene expression produced by repeated drug exposure. To provide a better understanding of addiction and the mechanism of the rewarding effect, it is important to identify related genes. In the present study, we performed gene expression profiling using microarray analysis in a reward effect animal model. We also investigated gene expression in four important regions of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, striatum, hippocampus, and cingulated cortex, and analyzed the data by two clustering methods. Genes related to signaling pathways including G-protein-coupled receptor-related pathways predominated among the identified genes. The genes identified in our study may contribute to the development of a gene modeling network for methamphetamine addiction.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.11-36
• /
• 2013

Korea has been recognized as a safe country about the substance abuse, but now is not safe country because there are over 10 thousand drug related offenses in a year since 1999. Seventy percent of them are drug abusers, so Korea government must have stronger political strategies about the prevention and the treatment of the drug abuse. Till now Korea government has focused on the imprisonment rather than the treatment for the drug abusers. So the relapse rates are over 40% among the incarcerated drug abusers. Now we need more treatment strategies and development of treatment methods to decrease the relapse rates. Substance abuse is a brain disease with a chronic relapsing nature and has a bio-psycho-social etiology. So treatment process has three steps, motivation enhancement treatment for substance-free lifestyle, rehabilitation aimed at maximizing multiple aspects of life functioning, and relapse prevention. To improving the treatment strategies the Government must execute the national survey about the substance abuse, enforce a law to operate the drug court and to sentence a treatment order with a probation, and establish a national addiction institute for study and education about the substance abuse.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.238-245
• /
• 2022

Previous reports have demonstrated that genetic mechanisms greatly mediate responses to drugs of abuse, including methamphetamine (METH). The circadian gene Period 2 (Per2) has been previously associated with differential responses towards METH in mice. While the behavioral consequences of eliminating Per2 have been illustrated previously, Per2 overexpression has not yet been comprehensively described; although, Per2-overexpressing (Per2 OE) mice previously showed reduced sensitivity towards METH-induced addiction-like behaviors. To further elucidate this distinct behavior of Per2 OE mice to METH, we identified possible candidate biomarkers by determining striatal differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in both drug-naïve and METH-treated Per2 OE mice relative to wild-type (WT), through RNA sequencing. Of the several DEGs in drug naïve Per2 OE mice, we identified six genes that were altered after repeated METH treatment in WT mice, but not in Per2 OE mice. These results, validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, could suggest that the identified DEGs might underlie the previously reported weaker METH-induced responses of Per2 OE mice compared to WT. Gene network analysis also revealed that Asic3, Hba-a1, and Rnf17 are possibly associated with Per2 through physical interactions and predicted correlations, and might potentially participate in addiction. Inhibiting the functional protein of Asic3 prior to METH administration resulted in the partial reduction of METH-induced conditioned place preference in WT mice, supporting a possible involvement of Asic3 in METH-induced reward. Although encouraging further investigations, our findings suggest that these DEGs, including Asic3, may play significant roles in the lower sensitivity of Per2 OE mice to METH.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.108-117
• /
• 2024

Background: This study aimed to explore the current activities of pharmacists in local pharmacies for preventing narcotics addiction, identify areas for improvement, and support initiatives to enhance and expand the activities of "narcotics addiction prevention counseling pharmacies" (hereinafter referred to as "Majung Pharmacies"). Methods: Surveys were conducted targeting local community pharmacists participating in the Majung Pharmacy activities in Daegu. Results: Out of 42 pharmacists who registered in the Majung Pharmacy movement in 2021, 41 responded (response rate of 98%). After excluding three participants who met the exclusion criteria, data from 38 participants were analyzed. The participating pharmacists were generally well aware of the conditions for pharmacists to serve as "accessible experts" in the forefront of drug addiction prevention. It was observed that the activities of Majung Pharmacies, particularly among highly engaged pharmacists, led to positive effects such as an increased focus on medication counseling for psychotropic drugs, thereby enhancing their professionalism. However, a significant number of participants also expressed negative opinions. Factors such as enthusiasm for professional activities and perceptions of the pharmacist's social role were important in shaping perceptions of Majung Pharmacy activities, whether positively or negatively. Additionally, this study underlined that pharmacists in practice are highly aware of the seriousness of issues arising from the use of narcotics by prescriptions. Conclusion: Suggestions were outlined for both short-term and long-term strategies aimed at ensuring the stable growth and expansion of Majung Pharmacy initiatives.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.75-84
• /
• 2019

Addicts pay more attention to addiction-related cues, such as substance or behavior. And increased attention to these cues is associated with craving. Methamphetamine is the most abused drug among domestic drug offenders, with continually increasing rates of recidivism. Of the total number of reported drug offenders in the last three years, 21.1 percent have been women. Even so, research on female drug offenders is inadequate, rendering policies and fundamental data for the development of psychotherapy programs insufficient. The present study intended to investigate whether female methamphetamine addicts displayed an attention bias towards drug cues. A dot probe task was conducted on 22 female methamphetamine addicts (addiction group) and 22 non-addicts (control group). The task allowed the correct response rates and correct reaction times of the participants to be calculated according to the positioning of the drug and neutral cues. The analysis results revealed that the control group displayed no difference in correct reaction rates and correct reaction times between the drug or neutral cues. While, the addiction group showed lower correct response rate and slower response time for drug cues in comparison to neutral cues. The results of this study are significant in that it identified the attention bias characteristics toward drug cues of female methamphetamine addicts who were disconnected from drugs.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.21 no.10
• /
• pp.21-37
• /
• 2021

This study investigated the intellectual structure of the latest trends in Korean addiction research in the social sciences. A network analysis of keywords with co-word occurrence was performed on 172 papers from the KCI database based on the data from the year of 2019, and a total of 432 keywords were extracted. The network analysis was performed using several programs: Bibexcel, COOC, WNET, and NodeXL. As a result of the study, keywords related to addiction type, study subjects, research methods, and research variables were found, and a total of 20 clusters were identified. Furthermore, to identify and measure weighted networks, the relationships between each keyword were explored and discussed in detail through a network analysis of global centralities, local centralities, and betweenness centralities. The study indicated that the latest issues were focused on smartphone addiction and provided implications for the future research and practice that fields and topics of relationship addiction, food addiction, and work addiction should be more considered. Further, the study discussed the relationship between drug addiction-crime, alcohol addiction-family, and gambling addiction-motivation and the necessity of qualitative study.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.149-157
• /
• 2008

Dopamine is a major neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) that regulates neuroendocrine functions, locomotor activity, cognition and emotion. The dopamine system has been extensively studied because dysfunction of this system is linked to various pathological conditions including Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, and drug addiction. Accordingly, intense efforts to delineate the full complement of signaling pathways mediated by individual receptor subtypes have been pursued. Dopamine D1-like receptors are of particular interest because they are the most abundant dopamine receptors in CNS. Recent work suggests that dopamine signaling could be regulated via dopamine receptor interacting proteins (DRIPs). Unraveling these DRIPs involved in the dopamine system may provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying CNS disorders related to dopamine system dysfunction and may help identify novel therapeutic targets.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.580-595
• /
• 2022

This study looked at the relationship between lifestyle choices and various substance addictions in young adults by applying the Relapse Prevention model of addiction. The data was obtained from a cross-sectional questionnaire (Depression and Anxiety Assessment Test) of 926 young adults aged 18~24 from 24 countries. Of these, 17.6% reported that they had a serious substance addiction, with alcohol addiction being the highest (11.2%), followed by nicotine (10.3%) and illicit drug (8.7%) usage. Results of chi-square test and logistic regression analysis revealed a significant association between various lifestyle factors (exercise patterns, intake of dietary nutrients like tryptophan, folic acid, omega-3 fatty acids and micronutrients, spiritual habits such as Bible reading and prayer) and addiction to various substances (illicit drugs, alcohol and nicotine). Depression was also found to be a significant factor influencing substance addiction. Interestingly, the risk of alcohol abuse was the highest at 9.870 (95% CI: 4.525-21.525) times among those who didn't have the habit of daily Bible reading. The highest risk of nicotine and illicit drug addiction was among those who consumed 'less than 1 serving' of dietary micronutrients per day compared to those who consumed '5 or more servings', with odds ratios of 9.606(95% CI: 2.726-30.111) and 8.642(95% CI: 2.022-37.378), respectively. These findings suggest that holistic lifestyle interventions may help prevent and reduce substance addiction in young adults.