Blattler Et Al Evaluate

Question 1

Evaluate in terms of effectiveness.

Answer 1

Conclusions drawn from Blättler’s study suggest that a maintenance programme combined with psychosocial support for opioid users is effective in controlling addictive behaviour and also helps to reduce other behaviour linked to criminality.

Question 2

Evaluate in terms of ethics.

Answer 2

Ethical standards were very high in the study with all participants giving consent, there were regular medical tests, the study was approved by the national medical ethics committee and withdrawal was permitted.

Question 3

Evaluate in terms of ecological validity.

Answer 3

There is high ecological validity as this is a naturalistic study and there is no direct manipulation of variables. For example, the study was carried out in the participant’s naturalistic setting. Also the price of cocaine was investigated.

Question 4

Evaluate in terms of reliability

Answer 4

Because the participants may not have given honest reports, the experiementers used urine tests to cross check the self-report system. The positive correlation increased from +0.66 to +0.82, suggesting good reliability.

Question 5

Evaluate in terms of concurrent validity.

Answer 5

Cross checking the urine samples (physcial data) the the self-report data (psychological data) researchers can ensure that they are receiving valid results. Due to the strong positive correlation of +0.82 at the end of the study we can say there is high concurrent validity.

Question 6

Evaluate in terms of validity.

Answer 6

the data collected may be low in validity as it is possible that data collected using the questionnaire may have been affected by social desirability biases meaning that participants may answer in a way that makes their behaviour more desirable to the researcher. Eg, stating that they no longer rely on drugs.

Question 7

Evaluate in terms of generalisations.

Answer 7

generalisations from the study should be cautious as the participants were not typical drug users. They were all heavy long-term poly-drug users with multiple health and psychiatric problems and therefore they can’t be generalised to other drug users. Furthermore, this Swiss treatment programme is unusual and is not typical of other drug rehabilitation programmes, thus the study is low in population validity

Question 8

Evaluate in terms of applications.

Answer 8

The applications of this study are far reaching in terms of economic and individual cost of drug use. Furthermore, removing the user from the drug scene, which was found to have a significant impact on rehabilitation, ensures that costs are saved by the police and social services with such maintenance programmes.