Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Background: The use of psychoactive substances has led to legal measures.Government regulations on manufacturing, supply, and prescriptions aim to reduce the excessive use of psychoactive substances; global efforts to combat the trafficking of psychoactive substances and to track the manufacturing of new types of them.Aim: The current study aimed to determine the new pattern of psychoactive substance use among drug users, socio-demographic characteristics of such population, and correlate substance use with different items of addiction severity index.The study is a cross-sectional study that included 422 patients from Assiut Government.Data were collected from September 1 st , 2019, to August 31 st , 2020, at the outpatient clinic of the Addiction Management Unit of the Psychiatry Department, Assiut University Hospital, Assiut, Egypt.For all eligible participants, the socio-demographic data, history of substance use, psychiatric history, Addiction Severity Index, and MSE of the participants were collected. Results:The lifetime prevalence of new psychoactive substance use is 1.7%.Strox represents 1.2% and 0.5% for Voodoo.The study reports other substances like pregabalin (8.1%), intravenous cycloplegics (5.9%), gabapentin (2.1%), modafinil (0.7%), pheniramine maleate (0.7%), and trihexyphenidyl (0.5%). Conclusion:In this study, we observed that the pattern of new psychoactive substance use was found to be minimal and did not cause dependence but only occasional use.
Authors: Tarek Ali Rageh, Safaa Omeira Ghaly, Ghaydaa Ahmed Shehata
Language: English
Subfield: Toxicology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4411819197