What matters to you?: A Health Promotion Perspective in Young Adult Substance Abusers – Deconstructing resistances

Brief Interventions focused in affective constructs and in internal reflections could be a favorable circunstance to encourage vulnerable young adults to communicate about their lives in a less defensive manner, to promote their sense of confidence to share and build plans for the future, to face developmental anguishes and globally, to bring more trust in their health decisions.

The data were collected from the analysis of the answers to semi-structured interviews conducted and globally written in the moment the subjects were presented at Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Use of Porto for the auditions with Panel Members, according to the law nr.30/2000, 29th November. The purposeful recruitment involved only cannabis users 'diagnosed' as non reincident nor drug dependent.

This exploratory study support previous theory that demonstrated that the extension of future time perspective and setting life goals are linked with motivation towards health behaviors and are dispositional constructs with an important role in substance use behaviours.

Our findings support the relevance of using approaches that equate time and meaning in life as fundamental elements of the process of constructing and exploring patterns of motivation towards health behaviors, such as the (re)constructive exploration strategies as a major opportunity to bring more meaningful approaches and rebuild psychological interventions in the dissuasion field.