Measurement of Drug Craving in Persian Speaking Subjects; a Review on Current Experiences and Future Perspectives

masoomeh maarefvand; Peyman Hasani-Abharian; Hamed Ekhtiari

Zahedan Journal of Research in Medical Sciences

The Official Journal of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences

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Measurement of Drug Craving in Persian Speaking Subjects; a Review on Current Experiences and Future Perspectives

Author(s):

masoomeh maarefvand¹,

Peyman Hasani-Abharian²,

Hamed Ekhtiari^3,*

1Department of Social Work, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation, Tehran, Iran

2Institute for Cognitive Science Studies (ICSS), Tehran, Iran

3Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Zahedan Journal of Research in Medical Sciences:Vol. 14, issue 9; e93216

Published online:Oct 16, 2012

Article type:Review Article

Received:May 01, 2011

Accepted:May 11, 2011

How to Cite:masoomeh maarefvandPeyman Hasani-AbharianHamed EkhtiariMeasurement of Drug Craving in Persian Speaking Subjects; a Review on Current Experiences and Future Perspectives.Zahedan J Res Med Sci.14(9):e93216.

Abstract

Background : Drug craving is considered as one of the main cores of drug dependency and addiction. Multidimensionality of drug craving, its cultural-bounded features and its intra individual rapidly changing nature makes it difficult to be measured. Nowadays, regarding different psychometric approaches, there are various instruments available for measurement of different aspects of drug craving but mainly for Latin-based languages in North America and European countries. High prevalence and special conditions, and unique subcultures in substance abuse and addiction in many countries, like Iran, make the design of culturally validated instruments for drug craving assessment priority.
Materials and Methods : Comprehensive review on drug craving measurement instruments for Persian speaking subjects have been performed by searching in databases (ELSEVIER, Science Direct and Scientific Information Database (SID)) and investigating of related documents on regional experiences.
Results : In this article seven main categories of drug craving instruments have been reviewed focusing on validated versions in Persian language including: self-reports, reinforcement “proxies”, drug self administration, psycho physiological responding, neurobiological responding, cognitive processing and expressive methods.
Conclusion : Reviewing on weak and strength points of each instrument group and national and regional experiences shows that designing and validating a new series of ecologically-validated instruments for multidimensional measurement of drug craving in different addiction subcultures should be prioritized to cover current methodological gaps in substance abuse studies in Iran.

Keywords

References

1.
The References of this article are available on the PDF file.

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