Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 12:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Poster Session II

Employment and substance use among women in drug court

Background: Employment has been associated with increased treatment retention (Wolkstein & Spiller, 1998) and positive treatment outcomes (Wickizer et al., 1994). Gender differences in employment have been noted because substance-using women are often less likely to be employed than men (Westermeyer & Boedicker, 2000). There are several barriers to obtaining employment for substance using women which include childcare, limited transportation, education, and job skills, which are difficult to obtain without adequate resources (Bride, 2001; Knight et al., 2001; Sterling et al., 2001). While studies suggest that employment barriers may be gender specific, these studies have neither examined specific differences in barriers between employed and non-employed women, nor examined differences in drug use behavior. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to profile employment history, employment barriers, and substance use by employment status among women involved in drug court. Methods: Study participants were 173 female participants from two Kentucky drug court programs who volunteered to participate. Study eligibility was based on entry into the Drug Court program. Face-to-face interviews were completed within two weeks of treatment entry. This study examines differences in employment history, employment barriers, and substance use among women who reported working full-time or part-time during the 6 months before entering drug court (n=79) compared to those who did not work (n=94). Results: As expected, those women in the non-employment group reported more barriers to employment when compared to women in the employment group on the Barriers to Employment Success Inventory (2.0 vs. 1.7, p=.030). More specifically, non-employed women scored higher on the emotional/physical barriers to employment (2.1 vs. 1.7, p=.021) and on the training/educational barriers (1.8 vs. 1.5, p=.006) when compared to employed women. However, there were no significant differences between these two groups on other employment measures. When substance use was examined, employed women reported significantly less alcohol use (5.8 days vs. 7.4 days, p=.031) and significantly less multiple substance use (7.6 days vs. 11.5 days, p=.002) compared to non-employed women. In addition, non-employed women reported more years of regular opiate use when compared to employed women (6.6 years vs. 4.3 years, p=.037). Implications for practice: Studies suggest that employment is important for improved treatment outcomes among substance users, yet little is known about factors which may be related to employment for drug-involved women. This study found that women who had a full or part-time job prior to drug court reported fewer employment barriers, specifically related to skills training and emotional or physical well-being. Therefore, substance abuse treatment interventions should be cognizant of the skill level and self-reported well-being among women in assisting them in obtaining employment. Secondly, since employed women reported less alcohol use and less multiple substance use prior to drug court, treatment providers should be sensitive to the possibility that the degree of substance use involvement may play a significant role in obtaining and maintaining employment for women. Thus, these findings indicate that social workers could enhance existing treatment interventions for substance abusers by tailoring services to address gender-specific needs related to their employment.

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