Self-reported Subjective Effects of Analytically Confirmed New Psychoactive Substances Consumed by e-Psychonauts: Protocol for a Longitudinal Study Using a New Internet-Based Methodology
| Autor: | Mireia Ventura Vilamala, Liliana Galindo Guarín, Carl L. Hart, Víctor Pérez Sola, Francesc Colom Victoriano, Marc Grifell, Guillem Mir Fuster, Xoán Carbón Mallol |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Longitudinal study
cathinones Psychopharmacology 030508 substance abuse psychonautic Smart phone 0302 clinical medicine psychoactive online forums Protocol 030212 general & internal medicine smart phone sentinel Observational Public health education.field_of_study public health online recruitment General Medicine Institutional review board Medicine Psychonautic Mental health Online recruitment 0305 other medical science Psychology mental health drugs of abuse Drugs of abuse longitudinal Population Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics R858-859.7 Psychotropic Cathinones 03 medical and health sciences Online forums Psychedelics eHealth observational Sentinel education Pharmacology Protocol (science) psychopharmacology Internet Medical education mobile phone Data collection subjective effects psychedelics Ehealth Clinical trial Subjective effects Longitudinal Observational study psychotropic internet pharmacology Mobile phone Psychoactive |
| Zdroj: | JMIR Research Protocols, Vol 10, Iss 7, p e24433 (2021) JMIR Research Protocols Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| ISSN: | 1929-0748 |
| Popis: | BackgroundDuring the last few years, the continuous emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS) has become an important public health challenge. The use of NPS has been rising in two different ways: buying and consuming NPS knowingly and the presence of NPS in traditional drugs as adulterants. The rise of NPS use is increasing the number of different substances in the market to an extent impossible to study with current scientific methodologies. This has caused a remarkable absence of necessary information about newer drug effects on people who use drugs, mental health professionals, and policy makers. Current scientific methodologies have failed to provide enough data in the timeframe when critical decisions must be made, being not only too slow but also too square. Last but not least, they dramatically lack the high resolution of phenomenological details. ObjectiveThis study aims to characterize a population of e-psychonauts and the subjective effects of the NPS they used during the study period using a new, internet-based, fast, and inexpensive methodology. This will allow bridging an evidence gap between online surveys, which do not provide substance confirmation, and clinical trials, which are too slow and expensive to keep up with the new substances appearing every week. MethodsTo cover this purpose, we designed a highly personalized, observational longitudinal study methodology. Participants will be recruited from online communities of people who use NPS, and they will be followed online by means of a continuous objective and qualitative evaluation lasting for at least 1 year. In addition, participants will send samples of the substances they intend to use during that period, so they can be analyzed and matched with the effects they report on the questionnaires. ResultsThe research protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Hospital del Mar Research Institute on December 11, 2018. Data collection started in August 2019 and was still ongoing when the protocol was submitted (September 2020). The first data collection period of the study ended in October 2020. Data analysis began in November 2020, and it is still ongoing. The authors expect to submit the first results for publication by the end of 2021. A preliminary analysis was conducted when the manuscript was submitted and was reviewed after it was accepted in February 2021. ConclusionsIt is possible to conduct an institutional review board–approved study using this new methodology and collect the expected data. However, the meaning and usefulness of these data are still unknown. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/24433 |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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