Center for Interventions, Treatment, and Addictions Research, Department of Community Health, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435, United States.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2013 Jun 1;130(1-3):241-4. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.11.003. Epub 2012 Nov 30.
Many websites provide a means for individuals to share their experiences and knowledge about different drugs. Such User-Generated Content (UGC) can be a rich data source to study emerging drug use practices and trends. This study examined UGC on extra-medical use of loperamide among illicit opioid users.
A website that allows for the free discussion of illicit drugs and is accessible for public viewing was selected for analysis. Web-forum posts were retrieved using web crawlers and retained in a local text database. The database was queried to extract posts with a mention of loperamide and relevant brand/slang terms. Over 1290 posts were identified. A random sample of 258 posts was coded using NVivo to identify intent, dosage, and side-effects of loperamide use.
There has been an increase in discussions related to loperamide's use by non-medical opioid users, especially in 2010-2011 Loperamide was primarily discussed as a remedy to alleviate a broad range of opioid withdrawal symptoms, and was sometimes referred to as "poor man's" methadone. Typical doses ranged 70-100mg per day, much higher than an indicated daily dose of 16mg.
This study suggests that loperamide is being used extra-medically to self-treat opioid withdrawal symptoms. There is a growing demand among people who are opioid dependent for drugs to control withdrawal symptoms, and loperamide appears to fit that role. The study also highlights the potential of the Web as a "leading edge" data source in identifying emerging drug use practices.
许多网站为个人提供了分享他们对不同药物的经验和知识的途径。这种用户生成的内容（UGC）可以成为研究新兴药物使用实践和趋势的丰富数据源。本研究调查了非法阿片类药物使用者中对非医疗用途洛哌丁胺的 UGC。
选择一个允许非法药物自由讨论且公众可访问的网站进行分析。使用网络爬虫检索网络论坛帖子，并将其保留在本地文本数据库中。从数据库中查询提取提及洛哌丁胺和相关品牌/俚语术语的帖子。确定了 1290 多个帖子。使用 NVivo 对 258 个随机帖子进行编码，以确定洛哌丁胺使用的意图、剂量和副作用。
与非医疗阿片类药物使用者的洛哌丁胺使用相关的讨论有所增加，特别是在 2010-2011 年。洛哌丁胺主要被讨论为缓解广泛的阿片类药物戒断症状的补救措施，有时被称为“穷人的”美沙酮。典型剂量范围为每天 70-100mg，远高于 16mg 的每日推荐剂量。
本研究表明，洛哌丁胺正被非医疗使用者用于自我治疗阿片类药物戒断症状。依赖阿片类药物的人对控制戒断症状的药物的需求不断增长，而洛哌丁胺似乎符合这一角色。该研究还强调了网络作为识别新兴药物使用实践的“前沿”数据源的潜力。
