Women's opinions of legal requirements for drug testing in prenatal care.
OBJECTIVE
To explore women's attitudes and perceptions regarding legal requirements for prenatal drug testing.


METHODS
Web-based survey of 500 US women (age 18-45) recruited from a market research survey panel. A 24-item questionnaire assessed their opinion of laws requiring doctors to routinely verbal screen and urine drug test patients during pregnancy; recommendations for consequences for positive drug tests during pregnancy; and opinion of laws requiring routine drug testing of newborns. Additional questions asked participants about the influence of such laws on their own care-seeking behaviors. Data were analyzed for associations between participant characteristics and survey responses using Pearson's chi-squared test.


RESULTS
The majority of respondents (86%) stated they would support a law requiring verbal screening of all pregnant patients and 73% would support a law requiring universal urine drug testing in pregnancy. Fewer respondents were willing to support laws that required verbal screening or urine drug testing (68% and 61%, respectively) targeting only Medicaid recipients. Twenty-one percent of respondents indicated they would be offended if their doctors asked them about drug use and 14% indicated that mandatory drug testing would discourage prenatal care attendance.


CONCLUSIONS
Women would be more supportive of policies requiring universal rather than targeted screening and testing for prenatal drug use. However, a noteworthy proportion of women would be discouraged from attending prenatal care - a reminder that drug testing policies may have detrimental effects on maternal child health.
a Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and.
Brownsyne
B
Tucker Edmonds
a Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and.
Fatima
F
Mckenzie
a Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and.
MacKenzie B
MB
Austgen
b Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Comparative Effectiveness Research, Department of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine , Indianapolis , IN , USA , and.
Aaron E
AE
Carroll
c Center for Bioethics, Indiana University , Indianapolis , IN , USA.
Eric M
EM
Meslin
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D011639:Public Opinion; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Substance abuse; drug testing; neonatal abstinence syndrome; prenatal care