Measuring meaning beyond substance use: Empirical understanding of the concept among Kolkata substance abusers

Pages:39-42
Fouzia Alsabah Shaikh and Anjali Ghosh (Psychology Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)

Perceived life meaningfulness is an important existential concept known for enhancing long term recovery from substance abuse. The present study is an attempt to further develop and validate the Perceived Life, eaningfulness Scale for substance users in recovery phase. The questionnaire was developed initially by Shaikh and Ghosh in 2010 on account of no empirical measure of meaning in life for substance users. Apart from giving brief overview of the original scale construction, the present study describes the validation of the reduced 15 item version . For the present study, 150 substance users from four different rehabilitation centers in and around Kolkata region were approached . Principal component analysis was done to validate the factor structure. Cronbach’s alpha of the total scale score along with the sub scale scores demonstrated that the instrument was a reliable measure of life meaningfulness . The present study gives a better conceptual understanding of life meaningfulness in context of substance use.