Childhood Addiction in Iran: A Grounded Theory Study

Nowadays, addiction is one of the major world crises, which threatens the lives of many people and imposes serious damage on families, societies, and especially children who are the most vulnerable. The aim of this study was to explain the process and reasons of addiction among children in Iran.

The present study was a qualitative grounded theory study. Participants were selected based on the study objective from addicted children or the personnel of welfare centers working with addicted children. Accordingly, 11 adults and 3 children were interviewed. The Strauss and Corbin method (1998) was used to analyze the data.

The facilitating factors for addiction included social factors (unsafe outside environment, addicted relatives, social pitfalls and easy access to drugs), economic factors (poverty, lack of proper facilities at home), educational factors (parent's low educational, not understanding social problems), religious factors (low adherence to religious beliefs), and family factors (incompetent parents, the absence of parents, lack of attention to the child, lack of supervision on child behavior and contacts).

Effectives step in preventing and reducing children's addiction can be achieved by increasing awareness among parents and families, teaching life skills to children and their peers through schools, teachers and social workers.