Objective(s): This study examined the abuse prevalence and characteristics, and risk and protective factors, among both runaway and non-runaway adolescents evaluated at a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) in Minnesota, which had implemented a referral program to assess runaways for potential sexual assault or sexual exploitation. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of self-report and chart data for t...

Background: The data on the prevalence of substance abuse in Iranian pregnant women is scarce in the current literature. This study investigated the prevalence of and the factors associated with substance abuse among pregnant women, and compared self-reported use with urine test results. Methods: This cross-sectional study included data for 2000 pregnant women admitted to a tertiary care hospit...

UNLABELLED Despite the high prevalence of substance abuse among first-episode psychosis (FEP) populations, few studies examine whether early intervention (EI) improves substance abuse. OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence and pattern of substance use and abuse among an FEP sample over 12 months. METHODS All the participants were diagnosed with a first episode of a schizophrenia spectrum diso...

This study examined the frequency, methods, and correlates of self-harm and suicidal behavior in 65 outpatient women with comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance dependence (SD). Results showed high rates of suicide attempts, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and self-harm ideation for the prior three months. The most common methods were overdosing and cutting/scratching. Both P...

This article provides information on harm reduction, a recent development in substance abuse services in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The author outlines abstinence and harm reduction perspectives and the stages of change model and discusses how these perspectives can be integrated in social work practice. He proposes using harm reduction strategies for individuals for whom the abstinence...

From a public health perspective, substance abuse has long been a source of major concern, both for the individual's health and for wider society as a whole. The UK has the highest rates of recorded illegal drug misuse in the western world. In particular, it has comparatively high rates of heroin and crack cocaine use. Substances that are considered harmful are strictly regulated according to a...

Harm reduction and abstinence-based substance abuse treatment can not only be integrated, but their integration is more powerful than either separately. This integration has more positive effects than either model separately on the large problem of patient retention in substance abuse treatment. This integration is particularly relevant for its utility and acceptance in the public sector. Examp...

Recent changes in psychoanalysis and substance abuse treatment are healing long-standing rifts that had kept these two fields apart. This article elaborates the historical positions that contributed to the schism and describes how the harm reduction model of substance abuse treatment and the relational orientation in psychoanalysis can bring them together. Three clinical examples illustrate how...

This article considers the potential in using nationwide registers to study harm to others from substance use and abuse. The advantages of using registry data include the opportunity to include the data on the entire population nationwide and continuously updated longitudinal datasets; they allow for studying small subpopulations and have little missing data. Personal identification numbers and...