TRIP

13 screening instruments for detecting illicit drug use in general hospital settings: a systematic review

The Mental Elf, 2012

13 screening instruments for detecting illicit drug use in general hospital settings: a systematic review » The Mental Elf
Cross sectional studies (Mordal et al) tell us that around a third of patients admitted to acute psychiatric wards have illicit drugs detected in their system on admission.
This new systematic review from researchers at York University (Mdege and Lang) aimed to identify the best screening instrument to detect illicit drug use in the general hospital setting.
Unfortunately when they assessed the instruments for reliability, validity, feasibility and acceptability, they found that none of them had been tested sufficiently in general hospital wards.
There is however lack of evaluation of illicit drug use screening instruments in general hospital wards.
Currently clinicians or researchers searching for a simple, reliable, general screening instrument for current drug use to guide practice or research in general hospital wards do not have enough comparative evidence to choose between the available measures.
Screening instruments for detecting illicit drug use/abuse that could be useful in general hospital wards: a systematic review.
Psychoactive substance use among patients admitted to an acute psychiatric ward: laboratory findings and associations with clinical characteristics.