opioids use in male population referred for mandatory urine opioid screen before marriage in shiraz-iran

ôbjective: to assess the prevalence of opioid abuse in a sample of male population in shiraz, ïran. methods: â representative sample of 1219 subjects (aged 16 years or older) who were referred for urine opioid screen (üôs) as a mandatory test before marriage in shiraz in 2005 were enrolled in this study. results: mean age of the participants was 26.17 years (sd=6.12), ranging from 16 to 75 years. from them, 121 participants (9.93%) had positive urine opioid test. they were retested at least few days later by thin layer chromatography (tlç). the results showed that 22 (1.80%) had positive urine opioid test (based on tlç), whose mean age was 25.7 years, ranging from 19 to 32 years. çonclusion: ït can be concluded that at least 1.80% of men referred for üôs as a mandatory test before marriage used opioids. these results should be considered when preventive and therapeutic programs are being planned.