Substance Abuse And Emotional Intelligence As Predictors Of Coping Responses Among Internally Displaced Persons In Abuja: Implications For Psychotherapy

Uzodinma Ezenwa Emmanuel

Abstract


Psychotherapy is perhaps the only alternative left to restore, rehabilitate and reintegrate the teeming number of psychologically bartered victims of Internal Displacement, scattered across Nigeria in solitary confinements. This became more glaring from the findings of this study which investigated substance abuse and emotional intelligence as predictors of coping responses among male and female Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). To examine the predictive strengths of substance, abuse and emotional intelligence on two coping responses (religious coping and emotional support), the study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design. Data were collected using three validated instruments (ASSIST, SSEIT and Brief COPE) from randomly sampled 300 participants (150 males and 150 females) between the age range of 20 – 60 and a mean age of 40 years, who were drawn from two government recognized IDPs' Camps, located in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Four (4) hypotheses were postulated and tested. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses and the results showed that both substance abuse and emotional intelligence did not significantly predict religious coping among the IDPs. Also, substance abuse from the analysis did not significantly predict emotional social support coping. Meanwhile, the second independent variable (emotional intelligence) recorded an inverse and significant prediction of emotional support coping response among the IDPs {β = .127, p< .05, t = -2.49}.The results implied that substance abuse and emotional intelligence failed as positive predictors of religious coping responses; while only emotional intelligence indicated significant but inverse positive prediction of emotional support coping. The study recommended for stakeholders in the humanitarian sector to formulate a national policy on internal displacement embedded with education and advocacy as well as emotional and family strengthening psychotherapies to address the plights of IDPs including their psychosocial and coping problems.

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