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Washington University
School of Medicine
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Club Drug Use, Abuse, and Dependence
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Project Title |
Club Drug Use,
Abuse, and Dependence |
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Funding Source |
NIH, NIDA |
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Project Dates |
10/01/01 -
07/31/06 |
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Project Number |
DA14854-01 |
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Team |
Principal
Investigator-
Linda B. Cottler, PhD
Co-Investigators-
Renee Cunningham-Williams, PhD (2001-2005)
Arbi Ben-Abdallah, MS
Lee Hoffer, PhD
Wendy Reich, PhD
Jim Inciardi, PhD (University of Delaware)
Project Coordinator
Stacey McCrary, MSW (2001-2005)
Braden Van Buskirk, MSW
(2005-2006) |
STD Supplement
International Supplement
Abstract
This R01 responds to NIDA RFA DA-01-010:
Responding to Club Drugs and Other Emerging and Current Drug Abuse Trends.
Surveillance data from the field’s best monitoring systems are detecting
alarming increases in the rates of "club drug use" among young adults.
However, the current state of knowledge about abuse and dependence
relevant to this use is severely limited. Such information is essential to
a relevant public health response. The results of the proposed study will
provide an unmatched effort to examine the psychometric properties and
sources of unreliability in identifying abuse of and dependence on club
drugs. This study continues the PI’s focus on the classification of
substance use disorders, which began in 1988 with her first NIDA-funded
study--the "Reliability and Validity of DSM and ICD Substance Use
Disorders" (DA05585). That study has achieved a high level of productivity
with both national and international contributions, as one of only a few
NIDA-funded grants to focus on the methods for defining and assessing
substance abuse and dependence. Now, investigators must expand their
assessment repertoire with reliable and valid instruments to cover new
patterns of drug use, and their consequences. Such efforts, considered to
be mundane to many in the drug abuse field, are noted to be critical to
NIDA in this formative stage of club drug research. These challenges are
of particular interest to this team of interdisciplinary investigators who
have been at the cutting edge of research on new epidemics for a number of
years.
The aims will be tested through a multisite study of 450 recent Ecstasy
and other club drug users, 15 to 30 years of age, in areas indicated by
NIDA’s Community Epidemiology Workgroup (CEWG) as emerging or current
areas of high risk in the US: St. Louis and Miami. Investigations in these
different settings will yield important information to:
1) Describe the nature and extent of self-reported dependence on and abuse
of 4 specific types of club or party drugs, hereafter referred to as "club
drugs" (specifically: Ecstasy, GHB, rohypnol and ketamine). This will be
accomplished by determining whether "cookie cutter"diagnostic criteria
used for other illicit drugs (such as those described in DSM-IV, III-R,
ICD-10 and the Edwards-Gross Dependence Syndrome) are generalizable to
individual club drugs, and to what extent users report the hallmark
symptoms of dependence and abuse such as tolerance, withdrawal, craving,
loss of control and social consequences.
2) a) Expand the Substance Abuse Module (SAM) to assess abuse of and
dependence on specific club drugs and b) determine the psychometric
properties (reliability and validity) of these disorders.
3) Understand the reasons for inconsistent answers and misunderstood
questions, using Cognitive Interview Methodology, to debrief respondents
on the meaning of questions and the Discrepancy Interview Protocol (DIP;
Cottler et al, 1994) to assess reasons for discrepancies between the test
and retest interview.
4) Develop and test psychometric properties of a Risk Behavior Assessment
(RBA) to facilitate the collection of risk factor data relevant to club
drug use, abuse and dependence. Components will include, among others, use
of over-the-counter booster drugs, spiritual factors, concomitant high
risk sexual behaviors, parental monitoring, and perceptions of harm.
5) Conduct qualitative research on the unique contextual factors that
relate to club drug use, in each site, to help inform the revisions to the
SAM and the RBA. Focus Group topics will include perceptions about club
drug addiction, acquisition and use, profiles of users, the settings where
club drugs are used, physiological and psychological effects of club
drugs, reasons for club drug use, and dealer and user networks.
6) Disseminate the aggregate findings to each local community, to the
larger scientific community, and specifically to local DEA agents and CEWG
representatives.
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