Evaluation of psychotrope use from urine samples in subjects attending a drug abuse clinic for the first time

OBJECTIVES: Determine how well drug abusers requesting care accept urine sa mpling and the reliability of this method for evaluating drug use. METHODS: Subjects attending a specialized drug abuse clinic for the first t ime were requested to provide a urine sample for semiquantitative analysis using an immunological technique to identify the following substances: barb iturates, benzodiazepines, opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, cannabis, and de stropropoxyphen. RESULTS: Ali 98 subjects included in the study accepted the urine sample. M ore than 80% of the samples were positive for 1, 2 or 3 substances. The mos t frequent were, in decreasing order, opiates, cannabis, benzodiazepines an d dextropropoxyphen. Among the opiate-positive subjects (70%), 80% were pos itive for 2 other substances, usually cannabis and benzodiazepines. Two-thi rds of the cocaine-positive cases were observed among the most recently see n subjects. Among the 27 opiate-negative subjects, 16 stated they used bupr enorphine. CONCLUSION: Within the setting of this study, urine sampling appeared to be well accepted by drug abusers. Urinalysis gave an objective evaluation of drug use and can be useful on an individual level providing complementary i nformation to the overall examination. Urine sampling can also provide indi cators for studying the evolution of drug use practices in different popula tions, both in a clinical and non-clinical setting.