Experiences and sense-making of problematic mephedrone use
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How individuals' experience and make sense of problematic mephedrone use: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
IRAS ID
182105
Contact name
Gurjeet Bansal
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
London Metropolitan University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
n/a, n/a
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 30 days
Research summary
Mephedrone is one of the most popularly used and under-researched novel psychoactive substances in the UK. The aim of this research is to explore mephedrone users’ experiences and sense-making of their problematic use. Research questions include:
1) How do participants describe their experiences of mephedrone use?
2) How do participants understand the problematic nature of mephedrone use?
3) How do participants make sense of their motivations/reasons for mephedrone use?A qualitative research design will be used, since this research is concerned with exploring and facilitating an in-depth study of participants’ subjective experiences.
Open-ended, semi-structured interviews, lasting approximately an hour, will be conducted with participants and analysed in accordance with Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis methodology.
Six consenting participants will be recruited using purposive sampling. Participants will be: 18 years of age or over, currently engaged with a treatment service and have a keyworker, self-rate their drug use as problematic, use mephedrone, not have any serious mental health problem and not be intoxicated when participating in the study.
This research hopes to understand problematic mephedrone users’ subjective motivations to use mephedrone in the first instance and its continued use despite its risks, why they choose to use mephedrone in particular, the importance of how mephedrone is used e.g. context, drug combinations etc., and their subjective experience of using mephedrone e.g. psychological effects, its impact on their wellbeing etc, how mephedrone users identify themselves as problematic users and how the transition from recreational use to problematic use is experienced. Such knowledge could further inform the development of psychological interventions for problematic mephedrone users and contribute towards closing the “training gap” experienced by counselling psychologists. Moreover, I hope such research will allow the field of Counselling Psychology to enter an under-researched but significant area of interest in the field of substance misuse.
REC name
East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0375
Date of REC Opinion
6 Oct 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion