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Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users

Polydrug use is a serious health and social problem worldwide. Treatment remains a challenge because it requires planning based on estimates of the nature and extent of drug consumption and the characteristics of the population in need. To this end, 103 subjects, who voluntarily asked to begin rehab...

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Autores principales: Gili, Alessio, Lancia, Massimo, Mercurio, Isabella, Bacci, Mauro, Nicoletti, Alessia, Pelliccia, Chiara, Gambelunghe, Cristiana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9031601/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35455887
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10040710
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author Gili, Alessio
Lancia, Massimo
Mercurio, Isabella
Bacci, Mauro
Nicoletti, Alessia
Pelliccia, Chiara
Gambelunghe, Cristiana
author_facet Gili, Alessio
Lancia, Massimo
Mercurio, Isabella
Bacci, Mauro
Nicoletti, Alessia
Pelliccia, Chiara
Gambelunghe, Cristiana
author_sort Gili, Alessio
collection PubMed
description Polydrug use is a serious health and social problem worldwide. Treatment remains a challenge because it requires planning based on estimates of the nature and extent of drug consumption and the characteristics of the population in need. To this end, 103 subjects, who voluntarily asked to begin rehabilitation treatment, were monitored through hair analysis to investigate the nature and extent of their polydrug use. A factor analysis was carried out to delineate polydrug user profiles based on the following variables: age, sex, type of illicit drug use, type of prescription drug misuse, and amount of alcohol consumption. Twenty-three percent of subjects tested positive to more than one illicit drug (mainly cocaine), 44% to unprescribed drugs (mainly benzodiazepines), and 66% were hard drinkers. The profiles of drug users outlined included “single drug cocaine user”, and “single drug opiate user”. Moreover, a particularly problematic profile of cocaine users, common between genders and age groups, who combine high levels of alcohol and unprescribed benzodiazepines and opiates, emerged (“hard polydrug abusers”). From a treatment policy perspective, these findings support the importance of preventive analysis before rehabilitation treatment begins in order to identify different patterns of drug abusers to implement personalized multidisciplinary measures.
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spelling pubmed-90316012022-04-23 Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users Gili, Alessio Lancia, Massimo Mercurio, Isabella Bacci, Mauro Nicoletti, Alessia Pelliccia, Chiara Gambelunghe, Cristiana Healthcare (Basel) Article Polydrug use is a serious health and social problem worldwide. Treatment remains a challenge because it requires planning based on estimates of the nature and extent of drug consumption and the characteristics of the population in need. To this end, 103 subjects, who voluntarily asked to begin rehabilitation treatment, were monitored through hair analysis to investigate the nature and extent of their polydrug use. A factor analysis was carried out to delineate polydrug user profiles based on the following variables: age, sex, type of illicit drug use, type of prescription drug misuse, and amount of alcohol consumption. Twenty-three percent of subjects tested positive to more than one illicit drug (mainly cocaine), 44% to unprescribed drugs (mainly benzodiazepines), and 66% were hard drinkers. The profiles of drug users outlined included “single drug cocaine user”, and “single drug opiate user”. Moreover, a particularly problematic profile of cocaine users, common between genders and age groups, who combine high levels of alcohol and unprescribed benzodiazepines and opiates, emerged (“hard polydrug abusers”). From a treatment policy perspective, these findings support the importance of preventive analysis before rehabilitation treatment begins in order to identify different patterns of drug abusers to implement personalized multidisciplinary measures. MDPI 2022-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9031601/ /pubmed/35455887 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10040710 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Gili, Alessio
Lancia, Massimo
Mercurio, Isabella
Bacci, Mauro
Nicoletti, Alessia
Pelliccia, Chiara
Gambelunghe, Cristiana
Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users
title Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users
title_full Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users
title_fullStr Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users
title_full_unstemmed Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users
title_short Patterns of Prescription Medicine, Illicit Drugs, and Alcohol Misuse among High-Risk Population: A Factor Analysis to Delineate Profiles of Polydrug Users
title_sort patterns of prescription medicine, illicit drugs, and alcohol misuse among high-risk population: a factor analysis to delineate profiles of polydrug users
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9031601/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35455887
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10040710
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