Homelessness, Addiction and Mental Illness

¶ … Homelessness, Addiction and Mental Illness

Informed Consent:

Before proceeding to the survey instrument provided here, we must request the consent of your participation in the research endeavor at hand. The research endeavor is designed to help researchers better understand the correlation between homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness. Your professional experience can be an invaluable source for enhancing this understanding. The following release requires your signature and grants your consent for researchers to monitor, analyze and report on your responses. This consent to participation is supplemented with assurances that your privacy will be protected. This means that your personal information will not be reported, that any information gathered will be used only for research purposes and that no individuals other than researchers will have access to your information at any time.

Please sign here below to indicate that you understand and agree to these terms. Thanks so much for your participation

Survey Instruments:

Perhaps the most distinct advantage to conducting research with a survey acting as the prime tool for data gathering is its capacity to yield first-hand accounts which may be protected by anonymity and which enable researchers to formulate data analyses that are not influenced by personal perceptions of subjects. This benefit is supplemented by the ability which the survey offers researchers to craft data-gathering questions according to the needs of the study. With this method of data accumulation, questions can be shaped to cast a broad reach in terms of that which can be utilized to formulate conclusions. This means that the survey can not only help to acquire data but can be instrumental in determining that data which is most useful or applicable

A major shortcoming of the survey is its relative lack of empiricism. It must be assumed, as one enters into this form of research, that the yielded results will reflect a degree of inevitable error stemming from any number of factors originating with the survey respondent. Essentially, by placing the assertion of data in the hands of the study's subjects, a researcher must accept the likelihood that personal dishonesty, error, forgetfulness, delusion, frivolousness or even an unconscious desire to please researchers are all possible motives for answering survey questions inaccurately. In addition to this cessation of control, the survey creates a data-gathering process in which the accumulation of numerical values for qualitative information must be accommodated by creating a synthetic form of representation. Such is to say that if a researcher desires both to employ the survey and to quantify qualitative data in such a manner as to graph it or represent it with some mathematical relevance, than he must utilize such a method as the Likert Scale. This survey form asks the respondent to equate his agreement with a presented statement to an incremental range of degrees, running the spectrum from total agreement to total disagreement. Though this is a viable form of data gathering, it illustrates that the survey in and of itself is not necessarily equipped to draw quantifiable information from the qualitative investigation.

Likert-Scale Survey:

The following survey instrument would be administered to social workers serving in homeless shelters and addiction clinics. This could be used as part of an experimental inquiry or could be used in a one-shot survey sample. The survey is designed to yield quantifiable measures on the perceptions of such social workers on the primary causes recurrent homelessness. According to the conditions of a Likert Scale, this survey provides a series of statements regarding homelessness, substance abuse, chemical addiction and mental illness, and asks respondents to rate their level of agreement or disagreement with each statement.

1.

Homelessness is frequently caused by drug addiction.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

2.

Homelessness is frequently caused by mental illness.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

3.

Many homeless individuals struggle with a combination of drug addiction and mental illness.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

4.

A primary outreach need for many homeless individuals is drug rehabilitation counseling.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

5.

The homeless suffer a disproportionate tendency toward drug abuse when compared to non-homeless populations.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

6.

The recurrence of homelessness is a significant issue..

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

7.

The recurrence of homelessness for individuals may be frequently attributed to drug addiction.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

8.

The recurrence of homelessness for individuals may be frequently attributed to mental illness.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

9.

There is a clear reciprocal relationship between homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness.

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

10.

Mental illness plays a significant role in preventing homeless individuals from f inding suitable long-term housing. .

1.

Disagree

2.

Somewhat Disagree

3.

Neutral

4.

Agree

Implementation:

Singleton identifies the systematic procedure as a form of data gathering in which a survey or interview will be utilized in order to gather information for further analysis. His text points to the large-scale probability study as a form in which substantial populations can be measured according to representative sample sets. The "scientific sampling procedures" used in such studies can help to place empirical parameters around the distribution of a survey instrument to possible participants from a large spectrum. (Singleton, 239) Its major advantage is its provision of the ability to contend with a wide variant of sample sizes. As a drawback, this streamlined and technologically supported method of contacting respondents and soliciting data will likely be outside the price range of a smaller research organization.

The questionnaire mode of survey research is perhaps most common where data collection is concerned. With possible respondents presented printed surveys and asked to fill out/return said surveys, the questionnaire bears the notable drawback of a relatively low return rate. As opposed to an interview, for example, the survey questionnaire presents courted respondents the easy opportunity to ignore, overlook or disregard the survey. An advantage of the questionnaire, though, is its ergonomic structure, with all individuals presented the same questions. This serves as a method of internal control over experimental variables and thus will guide us in approaching social workers for the study in question.

Ethical and Cultural Considerations:

The Belmont Report (1979) is an explicit, though declaredly non-specific and therefore generally applicable, determination that research must be structured according to a distinct set of ethical guidelines in order to be considered valid. (NIH, 1) This is to say that, prior to this report, there existed no central consensus on how to protect the interests or research subjects and that, therefore, research prior to this could be unduly influenced by the improper treatment or manipulation of subjects. Indeed, it had not been uncommon even well into the 20th century for human subjects in American psychiatric institutions to be considered acceptable fodder for experimentation.

A significant influence which this document has had on the research process has been in its commitment of all researchers to a recognition of human dignity as crucial to maintaining the validity of a research investigation. Indeed, we may extrapolate the notion that this idea of human dignity serves that under terms which are not artificially or prejudicially imposed upon the subject, the subject is more likely to help to produce more valid results. This idea of pursuing research validity, though important, is of course secondary to the impact which the Report has had on the scientific community itself, which must in consideration of its findings, be more collectively oriented toward the respect of human subjects and the conscientious distinction between practice and research. As this applies to our research, this concerns the protection of individual privacy for respondents and denotes that gathered data will not be used in a way that is exploitive or inappropriate.