Researchers Validate New Drug-Use Instrument for Primary Care.
Researchers from the BU School of Public Health and School of Medicine have found that a modified screening tool designed to help promote early intervention and treatment for patients with drug addictions is practical and useful in a primary care setting.
The research team, led by Don Allensworth-Davies, research manager of the BUSPH Data Coordinating Center, conducted the study using a modified version of the Short Inventory of Problems (SIP). The findings appear online in the March issue of the American Journal on Addictions.
The SIP, originally designed to measure the consequences of alcohol use, was adapted to create the SIP-Drug Use (SIP-DU) to assess the consequences of drug addiction alone. The SIP-DU is intended to be used by primary care physicians who are in a position to identify drug users before they have medical complications or seek treatment.
In the study, 106 eligible subjects from a primary care clinic in an urban hospital were assessed using questions from the SIP-DU. The results suggest that the SIP-DU is a valid measure of drug-use consequences and compares favorably to other SIP versions, the authors said. In addition, the study indicates that the SIP-DU is a brief and time-efficient screening method that can be effective in a primary care setting.
“The SIP-DU is important because there is currently a lack of validated substance-use instruments available for use in primary care. Most have been developed and used in specialty care settings,” said Allensworth-Davies. “In the current climate of health reform and efforts to integrate substance use and medical care, tools like this are greatly needed.”
The research team said the purpose of the study was to validate a version of the SIP that could be used in a primary care setting. The ability to characterize the consequences of alcohol and drugs separately may help clinicians prioritize interventions to reduce the negative consequences experienced by a patient.
“Primary care physicians are in a position to identify drug users years before they have medical complications or present for drug treatment,” the study says. “Certainly reducing the negative physical, social, and personal consequences of drug use is an important quality of life issue for drug users, and the involvement of primary care physicians in helping the patient find ways to reduce these consequences has the potential to improve both quality of care and outcomes. “
The researchers are seeking to expand on the study by validating the SIP-DU in a larger, more diverse population, and to formulate an SIP tool to help identify non-dependent drug users.
Other authors on the study include: Debbie M. Cheng, professor of biostatistics at BUSPH; Peter C. Smith and Jeffrey H. Samet, of the Department of Medicine at Boston Medical Center and BUSM; and Richard Saitz of the Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology at BUSPH.
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submitted by: Lisa Chedekel
chedekel@bu.edu