[Prevalence of substance abuse through biological method among patients with physical diseases seen in an emergency room].
According to a nationwide general population survey on drug use in Japan, using self-administered questionnaires, the lifetime prevalence of methamphetamine usage was low, compared with those of Western countries. Recent validation studies suggested that only about half or less of the recent illicit drug abuse was self-reported and the biological measurement of drug abuse was necessary to evaluate the prevalence of the illicit drug abuse. We collected blood or urine specimens in an emergency room located in an urban area of Tokyo, Japan, and analyzed the sera or the urine, using REMEDi-HS based on an unlinked anonymous method from 2000 to 2002. The prevalence of the methamphetamine abusers aged form 10 to 60 yrs was 2.94, 7.02, and 5.63 each year. The mean prevalence of these three years was 5.20 (95% confidence interval 2.42-7.05). It is necessary to look at the methodological differences between this study and previous studies. This finding supports the lower point prevalence of methamphetamine usage in an ER of Japan rather than in an ER of the US. However, it is not necessarily lower than that of trauma patients in the urban area of the UK, or drivers, and the ER population in France.
Hirabayashi
Naotsugu
N
National Center Hospital for Mental, Nervous and Muscular Disorders, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, 4-1-1 Ogawahigashi-cho, Kodaira-city, Tokyo 187-8551, Japan.
Yukioka
Tetsuo
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D019969:Amphetamine-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008694:Methamphetamine; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance; D012737:Sex Factors; D013997:Time Factors
D008694:Methamphetamine