Drug and alcohol review
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While persons with addiction are often hospitalised, hospitals typically employ abstinence-based policies specific to illicit drug use. Although illicit drug use is known to occur within hospitals, this problem has not been well characterised. Therefore, we sought to investigate the prevalence of and factors associated with having ever used drugs in hospital among people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada. ⋯ Our findings demonstrate that an abstinence-based approach to drug use in hospitals may be ineffective at prohibiting drug consumption. High-risk drug use behaviours arising from ongoing drug use may pose risks for further harm and illness. Efforts to minimise the harms associated with using drugs in hospital are urgently needed. [Grewal HK, Ti L, Hayashi K, Dobrer S, Wood E, Kerr T. Illicit drug use in acute care settings. Drug Alcohol Rev 2015;34:499-502].
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Drug and alcohol review · Sep 2015
Screening for hazardous alcohol use among university students using individual questions from the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption.
Abbreviated versions of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C) instrument have not been investigated among students. We compared a modified second item (AUDIT-2*) (typical quantity per occasion as the number of drinks, rather than categorical responses) and the third item (AUDIT-3) (heavy episodic drinking frequency) with AUDIT-C scores and described their associations with sociodemographic variables. ⋯ The AUDIT-2* and the AUDIT-3 appear to be promising standalone screening items for detecting hazardous drinking in this population of heavy-drinking students. [Blank M-L, Connor J, Gray A, Tustin K. Screening for hazardous alcohol use among university students using individual questions from the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption. Drug Alcohol Rev 2015;34:540-8].