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environment supportive of abstinence or control and engagement with that environment implies the use of behavioural coping strategies. Two points from the above brief review may be of relevance here: that untreated people more commonly use only cognitive coping strategies and that the use of behavioural strategies is predicted by situational determinants whereas the use of cognitive strategies is not (Shiffman and Jarvik 1987). In so far as people with higher degrees of dependence experience greater difficulty in abstaining (this is in the nature of dependence and different from the question of whether they are more or less successful in abstaining) it is at least possible that behavioural strategies will be more commonly used in this group, due to the greater effort required in reducing their dependence. It has further been hypothesised that dependence will endure for longer in those individuals with higher levels of dependence at the first measurement point and as a result they will undertake a greater number and variety of coping strategies than people with lower levels of dependence in the pursuit of reducing that dependence. Participants in the present study were not asked about their perception of effectiveness; they were asked which things they did in order to try to refrain from use. The number and type of coping strategies was then compared to drinking and drug use at each data collection point and to the contemporaneous degree of dependence.
Differences in research methodology, in classification of coping responses, in classification of relapse circumstances and situational determinants of these and of the application of coping responses render comparisons between studies difficult. Shiffman (1989) has called for a taxonomy of coping strategies without which, he claims, it remains difficult to establish which types of behaviours are used in which situations to what effect. He proposed a taxonomy based upon the sequence of their application as well as the nature of the behaviour itself. For our present purposes however, a questionnaire based upon the simple cognitive / behavioural dichotomy and capable of enumerating strategies used was selected. Furthermore the purpose of its use is to elucidate whether the decline in dependence follows a different course for high and low dependence individuals rather than whether or not they will relapse.
6.4 The measurement of coping strategies
Semi-structured interview techniques (Shiffman 1982, 1984; Shiffman and Jarvik 1987; Bliss et al. 1989) and self-completion inventories (Litman et al. 1983; Litman et al. 1984; Moos 1993) have been used to measure the nature and extent of use of coping strategies in substance use disorders. In the present study, self-completion questionnaires were chosen for all measurements for
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