Citation

Boyd CJ, Hill E, Holmes C, Purnell R. J. Subst. Abuse Treat. 1998; 15(3): 235-249.

Affiliation

Nursing/Women's Studies/Substance Abuse Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109, USA. caroboyd@umich.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9633036

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory study was to describe a group of African American women who smoke crack. Using aggregate data from 208 interviews with women crack smokers, we randomly selected 25 women's interview data to create the 25 life-lines. These life-lines were developed in a similar manner to the time-line analysis described by Fullilove and her colleagues (1992); we focused on events that are either extraordinarily disturbing (e.g., rape, incest, death of a child, etc.), events that are usual but often stressful (e.g., birth of a child, death of a parent, etc.), and on periods of drug use. We chose this method of analysis so as to highlight the context in which many women come to use crack cocaine. The life-lines provided a retrospective (but time-ordered) perspective and in several ways provided preliminary support for a stress-diathesis perspective.

Language: en