2-2 Case Study PSY 200

.docx

School

Southern New Hampshire University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

200

Subject

Nursing

Date

Apr 29, 2024

Type

docx

Pages

6

Uploaded by MasterClover6845 on coursehero.com

CASE STUDY 3 Katie’s Substance Addiction MARCH 16, 2024 SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY Barbara Ruiz
Case study 3 identifies a woman named “Katie” who is 35 years old and a mother of 2 young children. I do not see any mention of race or profession, only that she is a “rising professional.” This client presents with a substance addiction to pain medication, as well as Soma, which is a muscle relaxant. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, opioids can make people feel very relaxed and “high,” which is why they are sometimes used for non-medical reasons. This can be dangerous because opioids can be highly addictive, and overdoses and deaths are common. Ways in which people misuse prescription opioids are by taking the medication in a way or dose that is other than prescribed, taking someone else’s prescription medication, and taking the medication for the effect it causes, which is to get high. Use can be achieved by swallowing the medication, crushing it, or opening capsules to inject it or snort it ( Prescription opioids Drugfacts 2023). Katie’s use of pain medication originated with a valid prescription she received from a physician to treat her lower back pain that was a result of a motor vehicle accident she sustained when she was in her 20s. At first, she used her pain medication as prescribed. After discovering how her pain medication made her feel, throughout the next several years she began to visit physicians for various ailments, often leaving the office with a pain medication prescription in hand. As her addiction grew, she continued doctor shopping, as well as began asking family, friends, and co- workers for their pain medication if she realized they had any. She developed a cycle of continuously seeking out ways to make herself feel better and change the way she felt. She eventually learned how to purchase pain medication on the internet, and would often buy them online and have them delivered to her home. The actions that she took had a serious impact on her family and friends. The frequent purchasing of expensive pain medication over the internet
caused Katie and her husband, Lewis, to have significant financial distress on the family budget. When confronted by Lewis, she initially lied about the medication she was purchasing on the internet in an attempt to hide her addiction. Concerned, he reached out to her parents, who also became concerned and they decided to participate in a visit so they could find out if they could help in any way. When Katie, Lewis, and Katie’s parents sat down to discuss what was happening, she finally admitted to her addiction and the activities she was performing to support her habit. Her family desired for her to enter a treatment program and she decided to do so. Katie had many signs of addiction and drug abuse, while others were not mentioned in her case. Typical signs that an individual has a problem with drugs, prescription or illicit, are taking a drug after it is no longer needed for a health problem or pain, needing more of a substance to get the same effects, or taking more before feeling an effect, feeling strange when the drug wears off such as getting shaky, depressed, sick to your stomach, sweating, appetite loss, feeling confused, having seizures, or having headaches, being unable to stop using the drug even if you want to, using regardless of negative consequences such as financial distress or problems within the family construct, spending a lot of time thinking about how good the drug makes you feel while using, spending a lot of time thinking about how you will get more of the drug, having a difficult time setting limits on use, losing interest in things you once enjoyed, having trouble doing normal activities of daily living like working, driving dangerously when using the drug, borrowing, stealing, or secretly using money to pay for the drug, hiding drug use or having the drug, having trouble getting along with co-workers, friends, or family members and having them comment on or complain about how you act or how much you have changed, sleeping too much or too little compared to how you used to, eating a lot more or a lot less than you did before, inexplicably gaining or losing a substantial amount of weight, going to more than one doctor to
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
  • Access to all documents
  • Unlimited textbook solutions
  • 24/7 expert homework help