NCJ Number
174423
Journal
Journal of Addictive Diseases Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Dated: 1998 Pages: 67-81
Date Published
1998
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Recognizing that primary care settings are ideal for identifing and treating substance use disorders, reseachers studied the prevalence of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use in 21,282 adults treated by 88 primary care clinicians.
Abstract
The adults, who ranged in age from 18 to 65 years, completed a self-administered health screening survey while participating in a trial for early alcohol treatment. The health screening survey included four sets of parallel questions regarding exercise, cigarette use, alcohol use, and weight control. A randomly selected 10 percent subsample received an extended health screening survey to collect data on other factors shown in the literature to be associated with alcohol disorders. Results showed the period prevalence was 27 percent for tobacco use, 40 percent for alcohol abstainers, 38 percent for low-risk drinkers, 9 percent for at-risk drinkers, 8 percent for problem drinkers, and 5 percent for dependent drinkers. Twenty percent of the sample reported using illicit drugs five or more times in their lifetime and 5 percent reported current illicit drug use. Marked differences were observed in alcohol use disorders by age and ethnicity. Most persons who smoked reported the desire to cut down or stop using tobacco. The significance of the findings is discussed in terms of the treatment of drug disorders in community-based primary care clinics and procedures managed care organizations can use to screen persons for tobacco, alcohol, and drug use disorders. 25 references and 4 tables