RURAL PREGNANT COCAINE USERS - AN IN-DEPTH SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC COMPARISON

As part of a prospective, longitudinal study of the effects of prenata l cocaine use on infant outcome, we enrolled 308 women when they first came in for prenatal care or at delivery, in the case of no prenatal care. The 154 women in the cocaine use group, identified by means of d rug history and urine testing were matched to 154 non-cocaine using co ntrols on race, parity, socioeconomic status, and level of prenatal ri sk. This report presents a summary of the demographic and drug-use inf ormation collected at the time of delivery and the psychosocial data m easured at delivery including standardized measures of depression, loc us of control, self-esteem concepts of development, life stress, and s ocial support. Between group comparisons revealed that cocaine users w ere more likely than non-users to be older, to use other drugs, to beg in their drug use at an earlier age, to have more depressive symptoms, to have an external locus of control, to have lower self-esteem, to h ave a more simplistic understanding of child development and to have h igher positive life event impact scores.