RESEARCH

Reflective Practice, Research and Evidence Based Practice

Reflective Practice, Research and Evidence Based Practice

Introduction

The following is a reflective essay which will apply basic critical appraisal skills while evaluating an experience and considering future application. In this reflective evaluation of the experience/situation, I will be searching for, selecting and critically appraising one published piece of evidence. The essay will provide a reflection on an experience at the drug addiction centre that I am currently working in. Working in a drug addiction centre is an experience of its kind. During the initial days of my work there at the drug addiction centre, I was surprised to know that most of the drug addicts that I encountered did not talk much. They were submerged in their own thoughts. They always seemed depressed about their life and the past that they experienced. Most of them were depressed because of the fact that they ruined their lives by getting themselves indulged in drugs. Most of the patients in the drug addiction center were the same in this regard. I have chosen this situation or experience, because of the fact that this was a generalized situation. Most of the patients were the same in this regard. Most of the patients felt depressed and lost in their thoughts. Depression is one of the outcomes of drug and substance abuse. The problem here was that there were not enough psychologist who could deal with this problem of depression that the patients were facing. There were not enough patients and also not the psychologists who were qualified enough to deal with such problems of the patients.

Discussion

I was trying to talk to the patients at the drug addiction centre when I noticed that most of the patients that I tried talking to were submerged in their thoughts. They seemed depressed and did not have a positive outlook of their lives. They seemed to be taken up by the fact that they had destroyed a major part of their lives by getting themselves indulged in drugs. This was the experience that I had with most of the patients who were admitted at the drug addiction centre. The patients admitted used to sit in silence for hours and hours without even talking to anybody sitting next to them. They used to b submerged in their thoughts and showed many of the symptoms of depression like pessimism, Withdrawing from social contact, sleep disorders, lack of self-acceptance, fatigue and low energy levels and lack of appetite and weight loss.

Initially I thought that they may be sad because they were living far from their immediate family members and did not find much chance to interact with them. However, when I found this depression to be a common problem in each one of the people admitted in the drug addiction centre. I felt really bad and sorrowful about the patients. They were in a miserable condition because of the feelings of depression that they were facing. Initially I tried to talk to the patients to understand what ...