Challenges Faced by Rehabilitation Centres in Management of Drug and Substance Abuse in Uasin Gishu, Kenya

Abstract

The World Drug Report notes that globally, one in twenty adults between the ages of 15 and 64 years abused at least one type of drug. Every year in Kenya misuse of drugs costs the country lots of money and sometimes the misuse has led to deaths. Due to the impact of abuse of substances on individual's health and the socio-economic consequences, there are several efforts towards alleviating or reducing drug abuse in Kenya. With all these challenges and strategies put in place by the government and other concerned parties, drug and substance abuse in Kenya is still on the rise. This calls for drug abuse treatment whose goal is to stop drug use. The objective of this study was to determine the challenges faced by rehabilitation centers in the management of drug and substance abuse. To achieve the purpose of this study, three specific research objectives were addressed i.e., to determine the Challenges of the rehabilitation centres in management of drug and substance abuse in Uasin Gishu as attested by the management, to determine the challenges of the rehabilitation centres in management of drug and substance abuse in Uasin Gishu as attested by the rehabilitees and to establish the ways of improving the effectiveness of the existing rehabilitation centers. The target population came from the drug rehabilitation centers in Uasin Gishu County. It comprised all the drug and substance addicts and their instructors. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the drug and substance rehabilitation centers in Uasin Gishu County while stratified random sampling was used to sample the management and staff members within the rehabilitation centers.  Data was collected through questionnaires and focus group discussions. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings as attested by the management and rehabilitees showed poor rehabilitees participation, inadequate resources, poor implementation methods, negative attitude, lack of medication, irregular follow ups, rehabilitees abandonment, high client relapse, inadequate support services being the major challenges to effective implementation. It is recommended that rehabilitation management should recruit clients in references to the infrastructures in some of the rehabilitation centers to avoid congestion and the strained resources observed in some of the rehabilitation centers during the study.