Stress Adaptation Among Family of Adolescent with Substance Use Disorders: Systematic Literature Review

BACKGROUND: Families of an adolescent with substance use disorders report significant burden and stress. Adequate coping strategies can modify the impact of stressful situations and increase family function. AIM: The objective of the study was to systematically review literature related to the coping strategies and adaptations used by family members of the adolescent with substance use disorders to manage their stress. METHODS: We conducted electronic searches using MEDLINE (PubMed), EBSCO, databases to select studies on family stress, and coping strategies that were published from January 2000 to December 2020. The search terms were family, parent, father, mother, coping, caregiver, strategy, adaptation, adolescent, and substance use disorders. RESULTS: We found 961 articles. After application of exclusion criteria and exclusion of redundant references, 10 articles were thematically analyzed. The studies were organized into five categories: Engaged, tolerance, withdrawal, problem-focused, and emotion-focused coping strategies. The family members felt devastated by the incidents of violence and aggressive outbursts, and felt that they failed as parents. As a result, the parents felt very isolated from other family members and friends, and ashamed of their children’s behavior. Most families used problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies in different combinations. CONCLUSION: The identified studies show that the use of emotional focus coping is the coping strategy most often done by families. Problem focus coping involved family efforts to find sources of information and seek treatment services as a mechanism for adaptive coping strategy. However, a mixed methods study is still needed that clearly illustrates the types of coping strategies used in various cultural perspectives and social status.