ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: There is a need for screening and brief assessment instruments to identify primary care patients with substance use problems. This study's aim was to examine the performance of a two-step screening and brief assessment instrument, the TAPS Tool, compared to the WHO ASSIST. METHODS: Two thousand adult primary care patients recruited from five primary care clinics in four Eastern US states completed the TAPS Tool followed by the ASSIST. The ability of the TAPS Tool to identify moderate- and high-risk use scores on the ASSIST was examined using sensitivity and specificity analyses. RESULTS: The interviewer and self-administered computer tablet versions of the TAPS Tool generated similar results. The interviewer-administered version (at cut-off of 2), had acceptable sensitivity and specificity for high-risk tobacco (0.90 and 0.77) and alcohol (0.87 and 0.80) use. For illicit drugs, sensitivities were >0.82 and specificities >0.92. The TAPS (at a cut-off of 1) had good sensitivity and specificity for moderate-risk tobacco use (0.83 and 0.97) and alcohol (0.83 and 0.74). Among illicit drugs, sensitivity was acceptable for moderate-risk of marijuana (0.71), while it was low for all other illicit drugs and non-medical use of prescription medications. Specificities were 0.97 or higher for all illicit drugs and prescription medications. CONCLUSIONS: The TAPS Tool identified adult primary care patients with high-risk ASSIST scores for all substances as well moderate-risk users of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, although it did not perform well in identifying patients with moderate-risk use of other drugs or non-medical use of prescription medications. The advantages of the TAPS Tool over the ASSIST are its more limited number of items and focus solely on substance use in the past 3months.
Subject(s)
Substance-Related Disorders/diagnosis , Adult , Aged , Alcoholism/epidemiology , Female , Humans , Interview, Psychological , Male , Marijuana Smoking , Mass Screening , Middle Aged , Prescription Drug Misuse , Primary Health Care , Reproducibility of Results , Sensitivity and Specificity , Substance Abuse Detection , Substance-Related Disorders/psychology , Surveys and Questionnaires , Tobacco Use Disorder/diagnosisABSTRACT
The aqueous extract of bark of Ficus religiosa was prepared and investigated for its anti-inflammatory effect and for its protective effect on mast cells against degranulation. A significant anti-inflammatory effect was observed in both acute and chronic models of inflammation. The extract also protected mast cells from degranulation induced by various degranulatiors. The observed anti-inflammatory and mast cell protective effect may be responsible for the beneficial effect of Ficus religiosa in kumkum dermatitis and other inflammatory conditions.
