Awareness Lecture and Workshop on Risky Behaviors & Substance Use in an International Family Medicine Conference, Avari Hotel, Lahore Pakistan
Two days International Family Medicine Conference has been arranged at Avari Hotel in Lahore Pakistan on May 21 and 22, 2022. The organizers were the team members of WONCA SAR. The guest speaker/trainer invited to grace these initiatives were Dr. Nazish Idrees (PhD. Clinical Psychology) & Faculty of Allied Health Sciences at the University of Lahore. She is also a practitioner at Khalid Clinic Gulberg III. The idea was to highlight the emerging need to reduce the familial, social, psychological, physical and economic burden caused by addiction and related comorbid illnesses. Acute and chronic multiple physical and psychological issues put all the people's well-being attached to the patient at stake.
On Day 1 Saturday, to update the knowledge of a large group of family Physicians, a workshop on the behavioural patterns, risk-taking and psychological treatment interventions for addictive behaviours among youth were conducted on Saturday afternoon in Indus Hall. The purpose was to train the audience in dealing with some of the currently seeing maladaptive behaviours among youth. Such behaviours are usually triggered by obsessions and lead the patient to compulsion. Obsession and Urge management, habit reversal, and coping strategies are important in overcoming addictions to social media, screen use, shopping, gaming, and so on. The interventions that would be included are based on dialectical behaviour therapy and acceptance/commitment; such forms of therapy are different from traditional ones. The flexibility of such approaches helps the participants quickly assess their own beliefs, emotions, and actions that are not aligned with goals and values. Mindfulness, interpersonal skills, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance are four major domains; one skill from each of these domains would be explained for further demonstration and discussion. As an example, this plan is based on the helicopter method to provide focus on the identification and management of such daily life behaviours that may appear harmless but uncontrollable. Naming emotions, objective-based communication; willingness and mindfulness, and imagery would be used. Skills named STOPP and Urge/obsession management were practically demonstrated and examples were described. To conclude the session outcome responses from the volunteer's remarks and feedback were taken.
On Day 2, Sunday morning the first lecture was delivered on the topic “Family Engagement in counselling of patients with substance use”. The purpose of this lecture is the provision the latest evidence-based facts to the audience about working with patients to reduce the burden of at-risk issues. For substance users, recovering addicts, and at-risk indicative populations, it is crucial to understand a patient as a unit of a family rather than an isolated individual. The systematic involvement of family members and loved ones is quite helpful, especially in the case of patients with any kind of addictive substance use. It is crucial to educate and guide patients with acute and chronic illnesses about the consequences of developing a mental health illness comorbid with an already existing medical condition. The patients suffering from an illness need intense motivation and counselling as well as the support of family to enable them to become more willing to learn, practice, and enhance coping strategies and psychosocial skills to manage the cravings, withdrawal, and relapse prevention. Usually, a multi-dimensional approach to treatment is suggested to deal with substance use, the risk of developing addiction as a disease is triggered by certain biological, psychological, and social/spiritual factors. Through the constant engagement of the family during the therapeutic process, success is possible. We cannot choose blood relations by birth but we can make them a part of success in the path of recovery by choice!
After the successful completion of the event, encouraging words from the session’s chair were motivating. The appreciative stance of colleagues, fellow participants and especially international healthcare facilities towards the importance of the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders. The take-home message is that relapse prevention and referrals to rehabilitation services must be promoted actively.