title: Using the Trail Making test to screen for cognitive impairment in a drug abuse treatment sample.
abstract: The Trail Making test (TMT) is a brief paper and pencil neuropsychological test often used for screening for cognitive impairment. The value of the TMT is examined in a sample of 5619 males and 2902 females was drawn from electronic files of data from the Drug Abuse Treatment outcome Study (DATOS), a naturalistic, prospective cohort study that collected data from 1991-1993 in 96 programs in 11 cities in the United States. Data were analyzed to determine the effects of specific drugs of abuse on parts A and B of the TMT in this large sample of patients in drug abuse treatment programs. Most subjects, regardless of type of drug abused, on TMT parts A and B appeared to fall within normal limits relative to commonly accepted cutoff scores. These results suggest that the TMT parts A and B would have great value as screening measures for cognitive impairment in a drug abuse treatment population.
authors.affiliation: Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockwall II Building, Suite 840, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857, USA. croberts@samhsa.gov
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Horton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D014145:Trail Making Test