PhD Topic

Older Female Drug Users – Negotiating Identities through Drug Use, Treatment, Recovery and Beyond.

Abstract

With an increasing ageing population of illicit drug users there is a significant gap in addiction research that explores the social and health care needs of older drug users. In particular, those women who continue to use drugs and their attempts at abstinence and recovery. Drawing on feminist and social interactionist perspectives the overarching question of the proposal is ‘How do older female drug users negotiate their identity through their drug using careers and recovery?’ Using creative qualitative methods, this research will explore key transitions in older females drug use and place them within the context of other social, cultural, and structural influences.  

Research Interests

• Drug use and addiction
• Women’s studies
• Ageing and Identity
• Social networks
• Qualitative methods

Gilchrist, G., Swan, D., Shaw, A., Keding, A., Towers, S., Craine, N., ... & Strang, J. (2017). Preventing blood-borne virus infection in people who inject drugs in the UK: systematic review, stakeholder interviews, psychosocial intervention development and feasibility randomised controlled trial. Nov. 2017 Health technology assessment (Winchester, England)  21(72):1-312

Gilchrist, G, Tirado-Munoz, J, Taylor, A, Fischer, G, Moskalewicz, J, Köchl, B, Giammarchi, C, Dabrowska, K, Shaw, A, Munro, A, Di Furia, L & Torrens, M 2016, 'An uncontrolled, feasibility study of a group intervention to reduce hepatitis C transmission risk behaviours and increase transmission knowledge among women who inject drugs' Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, pp. 1-10.

Gilchrist, G., Swan, D., Shaw, A., Keding, A., Towers, S., Craine, N., … Watson, J. (2017). The acceptability and feasibility of a brief psychosocial intervention to reduce blood-borne virus risk behaviours among people who inject drugs: a randomised control feasibility trial of a psychosocial intervention (the PROTECT study) versus treatment as usual. Harm Reduction Journal, 14, 14.

April Shaw, Deborah Ritchie, Rachel O’Donnell, Amanda Amos, Lynsey M Mills, Sean E Semple, Stephen W Turner, Inga S Wilson. (2013) Creating smoke-free homes for children. Nursing Times; 109: 10, 28-30

Deborah Ritchie; Amanda Amos; April Shaw; Rachel O’Donnell; Sean E. Semple; Steve W. Turner, Claudia Martin  (2013) How do policy advisors and practitioners prioritise the protection of children from secondhand smoke exposure in a country with advanced tobacco control policy? Tobacco  Control.

Inga S. Wilson; Deborah Ritchie; Amanda Amos; April Shaw; Rachel O’Donnell; Lynsey M. Mills; Sean E. Semple; Steve W. Turner, ‘I’m not doing this for me’: mothers’ accounts of creating smoke-free homes. Health Education Research. July 2012; 28(1). 

• Dr Lucy Pickering
• Professor Gerda Reith

Sponsor / Funder

ESRC 1+3 (Health, Families, Relationships and Demographic Change Pathway)

Paper Presentation: “Too old to be living that life….fed up being me”: Older Women’s Relationships in Drugs Recovery” 

Poster Presentation: Using Object Elicitation Methods in Qualitative Interviews

Society for the Study of Addictions PhD Conference November 2018

Paper presentation: ‘Older Female Drug Users: Negotiating Identities through Drug Use, Treatment, Recovery and Beyond’

“Understanding the Gendered Impacts of Drug Policy”  Central European University, Budapest  - November 2018 - Funded Scholarship from the Open Society Foundation, 

“Drugs Research Network Scotland” Glasgow, November 2018 - Poster Presentation: Using Object Elicitation Methods in Qualitative Interviews

Graduate Teaching Assistant (2018) in Level 1A Sociology – University of Glasgow

Graduate Teaching Assistant (2017) in Drugs, Crime and Society – University of Stirling