Relationship Between Parenting Styles, Father Presence and Chemical Dependency Among Recovering Addicts at Shimo La Tewa Medically Assisted Therapy Clinic, Mombasa County

Abstract

Raising children occasionally opens them up to several avenues. Some of these avenues are of deviance and drug abuse while other avenues are not. The nurturing environment in which a child grows up in contribute greatly to the type of person they end up being in society. This also includes how the child is raised and the parenting style adopted. This study sought to establish the connection between substance use leading to total chemical dependence and parenting styles. The study focused on a small population of recovering addicts at the Shimo La Tewa Medically Assisted Therapy Clinic in Mombasa County. The study had three objectives; to determine whether a functional father figure predicts chemical dependency among the recovering addicts; to establish the extent to which previous parenting predicts chemical dependency among the recovering addicts; and, to establish gender differences in parenting styles. The research design shall be mixed methods. The study sample comprised of 136 recovering addicts; 121 men and 15 women currently under assisted therapy at the Shimo La Tewa MAT clinic. A questionnaire was used for the quantitative data and a focus group discussion was conducted for the qualitative data. In order to effectively measure the parenting styles, the Perceived Parenting Style Scale developed by Divya and Manikandan (2013) was adopted and customized accordingly. The preferred language of administering the questionnaire was Swahili. The collected data was analyzed through the Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) and then presented in means and data summaries put in tables. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. This study may contribute much knowledge in the field of public health and law enforcement in Kenya, as well as serve as an eye opener to those dealing with behavior modification with regards to drugs and substance abuse as well as harm reduction to the chemical dependent individuals.