Estimating the Prevalence of Illicit Drug Use Among Students Using the Crosswise Model

Shamsipour, Mansour; Yunesian, Masoud; Fotouhi, Akbar; Jann, Ben; Rahimi-Movaghar, Afarin; Asghari, Fariba; Akhlaghi, Ali Asghar (2014). Estimating the Prevalence of Illicit Drug Use Among Students Using the Crosswise Model. Substance Use & Misuse, 49(10), pp. 1303-1310. Informa Healthcare 10.3109/10826084.2014.897730

Text (online first version) Estimating the Prevalence of Illicit Drug Use Among Students Using.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (370kB) | Request a copy

The aim of our study is to compare the prevalence of illicit drug use estimated through a technique referred to as the “crosswise model” (CM) with the results from conventional direct questioning (DQ). Method: About 1,500 students from Tehran University of Medical Sciences 2009–2010 were first interviewed by DQ and, then three months later, by the CM. Result: The CM yielded significantly higher estimates than DQ for lifetime prevalence of use of any illicit drug (CM = 20.2%,DQ = 3.0%, p < .001) and for lifetime prevalence of use of opium or its residue (CM = 13.6%, DQ = 1.0%, p < .001). Also, for use of any illicit drug in the last month and use of opium or its residue in the last month, the CM yielded higher point estimates than DQ, although these differences were not significant (any drug: CM = 1.5%, DQ = 0.2%, p = .66; opium: CM = 3.8%, DQ = 0.0%, p = .21). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the CM is a fruitful data collection method for sensitive topics such as substance abuse.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

1 since deposited on 18 Mar 2015
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item