Tenåringers bruk av rusmidler som ikke finns. En studie av falsk positive
Engelsk titel: Teenagers' reported use of fictitious drugs. A study of false positives
Läs online
Författare:
Pape H
;
Storvoll EE
Email: hp@sirus.no
Språk: Nor
Antal referenser: 40
Dokumenttyp:
Artikel
UI-nummer: 06093637
Sammanfattning
Aims: We have analyzed teenagers’ selfreported
experiences with a fictitious
drug, and explored whether observed
characteristics of individuals who report
use of real, illegal substances change
when overreporters are excluded from
the analyses.
Methods & Data: Data stemmed from a school-based,
nationwide survey of 13-19 year olds in
Norway (N = 11928, response rate: 92%).
Results: Two percent reported that they had
been offered the non-existent drug
"zetacyllin", whereas 0.5% allegedly had
used it. "Zetacyllin users" appeared to
be heavy users of existing substances,
and therefore rates of GHB-, heroin-,
LSD- and cocaine use dropped markedly
when they were excluded from the
sample. Correlates of such real drug use
also changed when analyses without
"zetacyllin users" were performed: The
statistical effect of gender (i.e. being
male) vanished, whereas the impact of
age increased. The pattern of correlates
with respect to indicators of socioeconomic
background also changed, but
in different directions.
Conclusions: False positives may seriously distort
the validity of survey-data on rare
phenomena such as hard drug use. Due to this kind of response
error, rates of uncommon
behaviors may be inflated
and observed correlates
may deviate from the true
pattern of correlates.