Abstract

Desire stage in the cycle of addiction is assumed to be a key element in the recurrence of abuse. The purpose of present research is to study the impact of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on decreasing the desire for Methamphetamine in recovering addicts who referred to Ilam's Taleqani hospital in 2016. Present research is quasi experimental. 40 persons participated in the study. They were divided into two experimental and control groups. Each group consisted of 20 persons. Experimental group the stimulations of anodal frontal 3 electrodes and cathodal right shoulder electrode during 20 sessions with on interval of 48 hours between sessions. Also control group received transcranial artificial current stimulations. We used SPSS software, version 16 to analyze data. The highest frequency of individuals relates to below 35 years age group with 39 percent and primary education with 36 percent. In addition, the assessment of induced desire in pre-test and post-test groups shows that the highest mean difference relates to the impact of tDCS in anodal frontal 3 stimulation (P<0.0001). Results show that anodal frontal 3 stimulation meaningfully decreases the desire for Methamphetamine in comparison with cathodal right shoulder stimulation and control group. Since so far no study has been conducted regarding the impacts of tDCS on decreasing the desire for Methamphetamine, it is suggested to conduct further studied with larger sample size in other societies.