The Role of Making Voluntary Function in Prognosticating and Preventing from Addiction Potential: A Survey Study Among Some Members of the Iranian Red Crescent Society

Background: Considering Voluntary Function (VF), the purpose of the present study was to prognosticate the addiction potential (AP) among some members of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) in Iran. To get the research done, we made use of both correlative and descriptive methods as research methods. Methods: The statistical population of the current study included all youths who have been members of the IRCS. We employed multistage cluster sampling as the sampling method. We recruited 620 active volunteers of the IRCS from 31 province and 175 cities of Iran (48.7% female and 50.1 Male mean age 23.27±3.32, range 14–31 years). Iranian Addiction Potential Scale (IAPS) and Voluntary Function Inventory (VFI) have assisted us in collecting research data. Results: Findings proved that there was a negative signicant correlation between the AP and all measurements of VF such as protective enhancement, understanding, career, values, and motives; meaning that the more time youth spent on participating in voluntary activities, the less likely they sought to resort to misusing AP. Findings of the simultaneous-entry multiple regression has proved that volunteerism could prognosticate 15% of changes in the AP as a criterion variable. Conclusions: Due to its positive features, volunteerism played a key role in prognosticating and preventing the AP. Thus, it is


Background
Addiction is one of the most ubiquitous psychological disorders (1). innumerable factors would ease drug dependence as one of the chief dilemmas of people`s lives. Apart from its noxious consequences, addiction is a mentally chronic and reversible disorder that is characterized by obsessive searching and using of drugs (2,3). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), de nes substance use disorder as the conglomeration of cognitive, behavioral, and physiological symptoms that illustrate a person continues using drugs despite facing substance abuse-related problems (4). Addiction is one of the fundamental predicaments that affect the hygienic, psychological, and social aspects of our lives. It threatens public health, speci cally those of youths (5). Addiction is a social problem that has been in ltrated in every corner of the globe (6). Nearly 162 to 324 million people worldwide have been affected by various types of substance abuse over the past 12 months (7). Nowadays, narcotism and drug abuse among youth have been on the rise. While exploring the matter of addiction, we should take this issue into consideration that individuals are not inexplicably and unexpectedly victimized the drug abuse; rather they are gradually entangled in the process of addiction and its dependency by developing predisposing potentialities (8). Even though far-reaching efforts have been made to control the addiction potential (AP) among individuals, drug abuse has increased markedly (9).
Addiction is not something that can be simply attributed to a certain group of people (10). Rather, it traverses through a wide range of professions, social classes, and students with different levels of education. The interplay of numerous factors can result in substance abuse and addiction (11). Until recently, considerable numbers of research have mainly targeted studying effects of addiction, determinative elements hastening the emergence of addiction and its prevention. Taking these issues into account, the AP theory states that some people, unlike others, are prone to addiction provided that some conditions are met (12). According to research's, some of the prognosticating measures of addiction include social and cultural milieu, biological, interpersonal, and emotionalbehavioral factors (13)(14)(15). As such, the main goal of the present study is to explore socio-psychological dynamics in the AP (16). Making voluntary functions (VF) is one of the major socio-psychological factors that can mitigate risky behaviors (17).
Volunteering is a type of activity through which a person freely devotes his/her time to the bene t of other people, groups, or even organizations (18)(19)(20). Volunteers contribute to some organizations in two ways including reducing costs that are exerted over organizations by law and lessening the amount of budget allotted to full-time employees (21). Both society and volunteers bene t from socially voluntary actions (22). Making voluntary actions and helping out others assist volunteers in relieving their stress, dealing with depression, keeping their minds fresh, and pursuing proper goals in their lives (23). The more people get engaged in voluntarism, the more opportunities they obtain to be bene ted from (24)(25)(26). This justi es why some volunteers have been successful in obtaining status in both governmental and non-governmental organizations as human resources in the forms of employees, volunteers, and clients (27,28).
Non-governmental organizations annually recruit some members and volunteers through drawing up both intra and extra-organizational agreements with the department of education for instance (29). To enlist new members, nongovernmental organizations spend much money on organizing members, holding numerous workshops, and arranging recreational camps. Additionally, an abundant number of plans are made to facilitate cooperative activities (30). Getting involved in voluntary function help unpaid assistants to palliate the side effects of di culties they are confronted on the path of doing service (17).
Seldom does volunteerism cause people to get engaged in anti-social behaviors. There is a positive correlation between volunteerism, personal, and social advantages (31). To do voluntary services, people need not show longterm commitments. Volunteers can bene t from volunteerism even if they commit for a limited number of hours per week (23). Satisfaction, happiness, and the promotion of health are among those advantages (32).
Therefore, the feelings of happiness and ful llment, to a great extent, prevent volunteers from inclining to hazardous, anomalistic, and anti-social behaviors. It causes volunteers not to victimize others and do selfdestructive deeds (33). On the other hand, the ndings of some surveys have shown that stress, anxiety, depression, and a low level of ful llment and emotional health would increase people`s tendency to resort to using addictive drugs (34,35).
Unfortunately, despite the ceaseless efforts of experts, a clear-cut preventive method has not been discovered yet (36). One possible reason can be that addiction is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It is in uenced by biological and socio-psychological factors. Since addiction is one of the most contentious issues of today`s world, the present study is to explore the prognosticating role of VF in the AP among youths. On the other hand, it should be noted that previous studies have not explored the relationship between VF and AP among youth who have done VF in the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS). Furthermore, less attention has been paid to the relationship between making VF and palliating anti-social behaviors. Thus, we have decided to discover whether there is any relationship between voluntarism and the AP. We also intend to understand whether voluntarism can prognosticate the AP.

Research Design, Statistical Population, Samples, and Sampling Method
The research design of the present study was descriptive correlational. After collecting data, we delved in to explore the correlation between two variables of VF and the AP (37). The statistical population of research included the total number of youths who contributed to the IRCS as volunteers recruiting from 31 province and 175 cities of Iran in 2018. We employed multi-stage cluster sampling as the sampling method. The number of samples participating in the study was 620. Initially, we made arrangements and build trust with some executives of the IRCS. Thereafter, the Iranian Addiction Potential Scale (38) and Voluntary Function Inventory (39) were distributed among the participants. It is worth mentioning that we scored the total number of 595 questionnaires. While the rest were expunged from the analysis process.

1-The Iranian Addiction Potential Scale (IAPS)
The Addiction Potential Scale (APS) is one of the subscales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) that has been adopted from the second version of it namely, the Addiction Potential Scale. It is a 39-item empirically derived scale that has been designed by Weed, Butcher, McKenna, and Ben-Porath in 1992 (40). Zargar (2006) has speci ed the afore-mentioned scale giving it an Iranian motif (IAPS) (38). Thus, in the present study, we made use of the Iranian version of the APS to evaluate the AP among some Iranian youth volunteers. It is a 36-item inventory associated with ve polygraph items. The inventory is a four-item spectrum rating from strongly disagree to strongly agree with zero showing the lowest and four the highest values. The reliability of the given scale has been examined by MamShari et al (2020) using Cronbach`s alpha coe cient (0/91) (41). Cronbach`s Alpha coe cient in the present study has been 0/90 for the scale of the IAPS.

2-Voluntary Function Inventory (VFI)
Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI) has been proposed by Clary et al in 1998 (39). As a seven-item scale questionnaire, VFI consists of 30 questions grading from insigni cant to signi cant with zero illustrating the lowest and seven the highest values. The inventory is made of six subscales namely protective motives (a way that a person comes across to protect himself/herself from life hardships), values (a way to express altruistic values), career (a way to develop career perspective), social interactions (a way to reinforce social relations), Understanding (a way to acquire knowledge, skill, and potency), enhancement (a way to enhance oneself). Questions 7,9,11,20,

AP Addiction Potential, VF Voluntary Function
Statistical data shown in Table 2 illustrates that the mean for AP is 23/43. The highest mean for the AP is 108 and the lowest is 0 (38,41). Put it bluntly, inasmuch as the score transcends the mean, the more likely person tends to resort to misusing drugs; and insofar as the scores get lower than that of mean, the AP would decline. Table 2 also indicates that the mean for the variable of the VF is 175/90. It is worth noting that the highest score in each item of the inventory of volunteerism is 35 and the total score for the given questionnaire is 210 (39). To evaluate the predictability of the AP, we made use of multiple regression test. Table 4 reports the results of the multiple regression analysis with total expert rated AP score as dependent variable and VF as predictor. Given data in Table 4 displays that the variable of VF (total score) would prognosticate the AP (total score).
According to the information shown in Table 4, the predictor variable of VF (Total) could prognosticate 15 percent of the AP as the criterion variable. Higher scores for Voluntary Function, indicate the low scores for Addiction Potential.

Discussion
The ndings of the research have shown that there was a negative signi cant correlation between VF and AP (P < 0/01, − 0/39). Findings proved that the predictor variable of VF could prognosticate 15 percent of the AP; meaning that the more tendency people showed to do voluntary services, the less likely they tended to resort to doing risky behaviors such as addiction. To put it more simply, the research hypothesis was proved. The interpretation of data would be like this; the higher scores people got in the test, the more likely they gravitated to VF. Therefore, it can be said that getting engaged in more VF would deplete the inclination of youths to AP. The nding was in tune with the results of the previous research (22,46).
Millions of people do voluntary works per annum. They devote a great deal of time to it. They help and support people in need. They provide disadvantaged people with social support, nancial assistance, and consultation; unpaid assistants teach them how to organize themselves as well (22). Voluntary engagement is a kind of VF that some people would prefer to practice. It is an opportunity for them to help underprivileged people (47). These actions are fruitful in nature and are highly dependent on people`s free will. Volunteerism is in harmony with personal values, needs, and motives (20). Besides, volunteers are sometimes offered some ancillary bene ts. For instance, they learn new skills. They are also given a chance to be recognized by others. It should not be left unmentioned that volunteers do not engage in voluntary work for the sake of receiving any reward. Nor do they involve in voluntary works for the fear of punishments (48). Volunteerism would connect you to the society at large through which you can make the surrounding a more suitable place to live in. Even doing insigni cant activities can change people`s lives (22). Volunteerism looks like a two-way street. Not only can it be bene cial to the public, but also you and your family. Spending time and energy on voluntary works would help you make new friends, expand your social network, and boost your social skills. Based on previous research, social network and social skills can reinforce social support (49). These all provide a source of social support which, in return, can lessen the addictive potential of drugs among youths (48,50). Health Guide Organization (32) acknowledges that volunteerism provides bashful and withdrawn people with an opportunity to learn socially new skills. Social skills would possibly get withdrawn people out of solitude. According to previous studies, loneliness would act as a driving force in getting addicted (51,52).
On the other hand, voluntary works are instrumental in both physical and emotional health (53). Emotional health is a factor that can prognosticate the AP. As emotional health improves, the AP decreases (32,54,55). Health Guide Organization (32) also states that emotional health would help people make improvements in their workplace, and meet those who are interested in doing a business in their desired eld of work. Even if people would not prefer to change their occupations, volunteerism would allow them to learn important skills such as teamwork, communications, problem-solving, project planning, management, and work scheduling programs in the workplace (32). Doing business is an important preventive factor (56,57).
Health Guide Organization (32) concedes that volunteers feel grati ed while helping others. When the life expectancy is high in a certain society, social interactions, co-operation, life satisfaction, social and emotional health would proliferate (58)(59)(60). The lack of spirit for social cooperation would possibly result in depression, pessimism, the negative evaluation of incidents, indifference to social affairs and work, dwindling of work ethics, social anomalies, the prevalence of violence in social relations, divorce, and the inclination to the culture of outsiders (15,61,62).
To sum, it can be said that volunteerism teaches some skills to people through which they would be able to improve their weaknesses and interpersonal relations. Also, they can put their acquired skills into practice properly and get involved in less risky behaviors. In other words, voluntary activities act as a sort of preventive factor in committing hazardous behaviors. Besides doing daily chores, those people who get engaged in voluntary works would be protected from possible threats and perils.

Limitations
One of the limitations of the study is related to the research method. The present study has nothing to do with the cause and effect relationship. Moreover, since the study primarily places emphasis on a certain group, members of the Red Crescent Organization in this respect, we should cautious about the matter of generalization.
As a suggestion, we recommend prospective researchers to explore other variables such as emotions, beliefs, and thoughts that may encourage people to get addicted. It should be noted that cross-sectional and longitudinal studies can possibly explain the predisposing factors in addiction more appropriately.

Conclusions
The At the beginning of the questionnaire distribution session, the purpose of the study was explained for the participants and they were assured about the anonymity and con dentiality of their responses. All participants gave their signed written informed consent letters. The study protocol was approved by the Ethics committee (EC) of the Red Crescent Youth Organization "approval no: 97/23/38392". All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

Consent for publication
Not applicable. Author

Competing interests
The authors declare no con ict of interest.
Availability of data and material The primary data for this study is available from the authors on direct request.

Funding
This research has been extracted from the Master's thesis of the rst author in the General Psychology Department of Allameh Tabataba'i University, which has been carried out in cooperation with the Red Crescent Youth Organization of Iran and sponsored by the Youth Organization of the Red Crescent Society of the Islamic Republic of Iran.