Tuesday, January 17, 2012

What Do You Assume to Be True About _________?

A vulnerable population I would like to, and think I should, learn more about is substance abusers.  The reason I would like to learn more about this population is because I have many perceptions about them and I would like to find out if my beliefs are accurate or not.  When I think of a substance abuser, I think of someone who looks really skinny, tired, and frail, and seem to always have bags below their eyes.  I assume they are greedy people, that would go to any length, including selling all of their personal belongings, steeling, and prostitution, to get what they want.  When they're not using, I believe substance abusers get fidgety and on edge, and act abnormal from their using self.  I'm not exactly sure where I got these views about substance abusers from.  I've never been informed of true facts about substance abusers so I believe the media and my peers have had a lot of influence on my views.  I think the most difficult challenge in doing research on substance abusers will be trying to understand what is going through someone from this population's mind.  In my own head, me not being a substance abuser, I wonder why a substance abuser can't just stop harming them self and get their life on track.  It's hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of addiction, so I would like to try to discover what it's really like and how it feels for someone.
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2 comments:

  1. RachelJanuary 17, 2012 at 9:30 AM

    Hi Whitney,

    Thank you for your honest post. It is good to learn more about substance abusers, as you will be working with them in the Nursing field. They could be children, teenagers, adults, or senior citizens, so you could see them at any stage of life. You will find a lot of information about them during the course of this class!

    Substance abusers includes a broad spectrum of people--alcoholics, and all of the people who are addicted to specific drugs. For your semester research project, you will have to narrow down this broad group to one segment of the substance abuser population (your choice) in order to have a successful project. What may be true for one segment of the population may not be true for another.

    I am looking forward to hearing about how this research topic develops!

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  2. The Human Society ResearchersJanuary 20, 2012 at 1:52 PM

    I will be following up with this population of your soon. Keep it coming please!

    ReplyDelete

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