Substance Abuse Treatment: Therapists' Gender Roles 2008

The data are part of Substance Abuse Treatment series, which comprises datasets that can be used in both quantitative and qualitative research. This dataset was collected as an internet survey for drug and alcohol counsellors in Finnish outpatient clinics. The survey included four sections. The first section focused on the respondents' background. Questions covered the treatment method or approach the respondents themselves mostly used and how important they thought some often used methods or approaches were. Opinions were probed on whether the respondents would prefer to work with members of one sex over the other. The respondents were asked whether they had experienced sexual violence or abuse, had been exposed to someone's alcohol or drug problem as a child, had been interested in helping people as a child and whether they had personal experience of recovering from substance abuse. The respondents' religiosity and enthusiasm for their work were investigated. In the second section, the respondents were requested to indicate on a seven point scale how well a number of characteristics described them (e.g. conscientious, firm, willing to take risks). In the third section, the respondents were presented with statements relating to gender equality (e.g. "Society has reached a point in which men and women have equal opportunities to succeed") and asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with them. The final section had vignette questions describing three hypothetical clients with similar problems but differing backgrounds. The respondents were asked to pick six adjectives from a list to describe each client. Background variables included, among others, the respondent's age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, education and job title.