Annali dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Jan 2011)

Proposal for a new detection method of substance abuse risk in Croatian adolescents

  • Sanja Tatalovic Vorkapic,
  • Elizabeta Dadic-Hero,
  • Klementina Ruzic,
  • Dobrica Roncevic,
  • Rajna Knez

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4415/ANN_11_03_13
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 47, no. 3
pp. 316 – 320

Abstract

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One of the most important factors of successful substance abuse treatment is the early start of the same treatment. Recent selection method for identification of Croatian adolescents in the substance abuse risk that has been using drug tests from urine samples, has been simple and exact on the one hand, but on the other, has been very rare and usually guided by the pressure of parents or the court. Besides, such method presented the source of legal and ethical questions. So, the proposal of application of standardized psychological tests during systematic medical exams of Croatian adolescents at the age range of 15-22 years could help with the early detection of those adolescents who were in the substance abuse risk or already had the developed addiction problem.

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