The concept of context in the field of addiction research. A review

In the field of addiction research, studies have typically focused on the identification of individual factors that affect the onset and maintenance of addictive behaviors. However, there has been growing interest in the role of social and cultural factors. The authors reviewed the literature on addictions with the purpose of investigating how scholars have conceptualized and incorporated contextual influences in their work. An analysis was made of studies investigating “context”, in the period 2012-2014, in one of the most representative journals in the field. From a total of 142 studies examined, 14 macro-categories and 48 sub-categories were identified. Most of the articles identify context with socio-demographic variables, exposition to addictive behaviors in the social environment and different social and family factors. The review reveals that many studies lack an explicit theoretical model; furthermore, there is a huge variability in the way of defining and analyzing the role of context; only a few studies addressed the role of culture and the meaning of the experience.