ArticleJournal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM
Identifying Problematic Substance Use in a National Sample of Adolescents Using Frequency Questions.
Article in Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chronic Health Conditions and Substance Use Among Canadian Youth: A Nationally Representative Study: Problèmes de santé chroniques et usage de substances chez les jeunes Canadiens : étude représentative à l'échelle nationale.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2026Article
- Identification and External Validation of a Problem Cannabis Risk Network.Biological psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundBrief substance use screening questions for tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and other drugs need further validation in adolescents. In particular, optimal age-specific screening cut-points are not known, and no study has been large enough to evaluate screening questions for noncannabis illicit drug use.
methodsAdolescent respondents to an annual national household survey were included (2008 to 2014; n = 169,986). Days of tobacco use in the past month, and days of alcohol, cannabis, other illicit drug use in the past year, were assessed as brief screens for tobacco dependence and DSM-IV alcohol (AUD), cannabis (CUD), and other illicit drug use disorders (DUD). Areas under receiver operating characteristics curves (AUCs), sensitivity and specificity were estimated separately by age group (12-15-, 16-17-, and 18-20-year-olds) and cut-points that maximized combined values of sensitivity and specificity were considered optimal.
resultsThe prevalence of tobacco dependence, AUD, CUD, and DUD was 5.8%, 7.1%, 4.5%, and 2.0%, respectively. AUCs ranged 0.84 to 0.99. The optimal cut-points for screening for tobacco dependence and DUDs was the same for all age groups: ≥1 day. The optimal cut-points for alcohol and cannabis varied by age: ≥3 days for 12-15-year-olds and ≥12 days for older adolescents.
conclusionsBrief measures of past-year use, or past-month use for tobacco, accurately identified adolescents with problematic substance use. However, health systems should use age-specific screening cut-points for alcohol and cannabis to optimize screening performance.
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Registered trials
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