title: Prevalence of illicit drug use among prenatal patients and predictive validity of nurses' judgments.
abstract: The purposes of this investigation were to: (1) estimate the prevalence of illicit drug use within the prenatal population of a midwestern suburban ambulatory care center; (2) explore the relationship between nurses' judgments of patient illicit drug use and urine toxicology results; and (3) determine if a difference exists between nurses' judgments of illicit drug use by private physicians' patients (PPP) and nurses' judgments of illicit drug use by resident physicians' patients (RPP). For a 16-week period, all new prenatal patients (N = 189) were included in this study; 78 (41%) were in the RPP group and 111 (59%) were in the PPP group. Urine remaining from routine urinalysis was assayed for seven drugs or drug classes. Fourteen (7.5%) subjects tested positive for illicit drugs, 8 (10.3%) in the RPP group, and 6 (5.4%) in the PPP group (chi 2, P greater than .33). Using a Likert-type scale, nurses rated the likelihood of a positive result of each patient's urine test. Nurses' judgments of patient illicit drug use and positive results were related, r = .28. Nurses were more likely (P less than .0001) to suspect residents' patients of illicit drug use than private physicians' patients.
authors.affiliation: Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wiley
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gibbs
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Karlman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tse
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Perez-Woods
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D013287:Illicit Drugs / Q000652:urine; D007396:Internship and Residency; D007600:Judgment; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital; D015146:Midwestern United States; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000652:urine; D015995:Prevalence; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D013287:Illicit Drugs