The social representations of the alcoholism and drug addiction in Portuguese workplace / Representaçöes sociais do alcoolismo e toxicodependência no meio laboral português

Abstract

The present study aims to evaluate how social representations, are
instrumental to evaluate the proneness to act of enterprises, employer’s and worker’s organizations, decision-makers against the abuse and dependence of alcohol and drugs in the workplace, in Portugal, in 2003.
Both, the present and the previous studies (for the European Commission and the International Labour Offi ce, in 1993) adopted a strategic research design in witch representatives of the three above mentioned types of organizations were interviewed and answered similar questionnaires, and about social representations used a specifi c software developed by Pierre Vergès.
Social representations of alcoholism and drug adicton, in Portugal,
in 2003, are to enterprises, employer’s and worker’s organizations
close to each other. Common core words are disease, dependence
and degradation. Categorization showed the central semantic role of
(person’s) degradation. The categorization connection of enterprises
and worker’s organization are closer than the one of the employer’s
organizations. The semantic network is, in all cases more complex for alcohol than it is for drugs.
It turns out that, in general, a decade of strategic studies, in Portugal, discloses an inhibition to act by the most responsible intervenient in the workplace in contrast to their own evaluation of the seriousness of the problem. Why this trend continues unchanged is out of the reach of the present empirical studies.