Measuring The Harms Caused by Illicit Drugs. A New Methodology for Estimating Drug Harm Index

Abstract

Background: Substance use carries a wide range of negative consequences, impacting both the individual using the substances and others. In recent years, there have been multiple efforts to assess the harm caused by drugs and to rank them, with each taking a distinctive approach to the matter. Objectives: This study seeks to introduce a new model for assessing the harm index and ranking of drugs. Methods: This prospective study involved the evaluation of 277 male drug users, assessing substance use harm on four separate occasions throughout the span of 1 year. Various aspects of harm were quantified through the utilization of the Duke Health Profile (DUKE) and the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) questionnaire. The pharmaceutical properties of each drug were incorporated into the study. The relationship between the combined variables in a mixed statistical model was determined at a significance level of .05 using the Rsoftware. This procedure facilitated the establishment of models and the definition of harm index ranges for each substance. Result: The results indicated that heroin had the highest harm index at 71.2 (95% CI69.6–72.8), while pure methadone scored the lowest at 36.5 (95% CI31.7–41.7), along with methadone combined with methamphetamine, which scored 35 (95% CI33–37.1). Conclusion: The variables utilized in this study can help estimate the approximate harm index range for both traditional and novel substances. Furthermore, the harm model designed in this study has the capability to predict the extent of harm to a drug user.

Keywords:

• Drug harm
• illicit drugs
• harm index

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the study participants.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

This study was the PhD project of one of the first authors (M.H Novin). The PhD project proposal was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (code of ethics: IR.TUMS.VCR.REC.1398.755).

Authers’ contributions

Mohammad Hassan Novin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Writing—original draft, Data curation, Investigation.

Emran Mohammad Razaghi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing- review & editing, Supervision.

Farshad Farzadfar: Methodology Supervision, Project administration.

Mohammad Jafar Tarokh: Methodology, Writing- review & editing.

Mahtab Rouhifard: Formal analysis, Software.

Additional information

Funding

This study was in part funded by Tehran University of Medical Sciences.