Harrison E R, Haaga J, Richards T
Social Policy Department, RAND Corporation, Washington, D.C.
Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse. 1993;19(4):423-41. doi: 10.3109/00952999309001632.
The purpose of this study is to examine self-reported marijuana and cocaine use responses from two nationally representative surveys. We compared prevalence rates across birth cohorts for multiple years of the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (NHSDA) and also analyzed longitudinal inconsistencies in self-reported drug use between two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort (NLS-Y). We found the percentages of respondents admitting use within the past month, year, and lifetime were comparable to other findings and were consistent with the declining trend in drug use in the late 1980s. A comparison of lifetime prevalence rates revealed seemingly inconsistent reports between 1985 respondents and their birth cohorts in 1990. Using the longitudinal NLS-Y data, we found that roughly one-fifth of the people who had admitted using marijuana or cocaine in their lifetime on the 1984 survey subsequently denied ever having used in 1988. The majority of these cases were people who reported having used infrequently. The subsample of women had similar patterns. In addition, we discovered that women who had been pregnant between the two surveys were more likely to inconsistently deny having ever used, while those who were currently pregnant responded more honestly about their past use. Overall, we found that although most people are willing to provide accurate accounts of their use, the researcher should be aware that under-reporting or complete denial does occur. Most importantly, external factors appear to contribute to the rate of inaccurate reporting.
本研究的目的是检验来自两项全国代表性调查的自我报告的大麻和可卡因使用情况。我们比较了多年来全国药物滥用家庭调查（NHSDA）中不同出生队列的流行率，还分析了全国青少年纵向调查队列（NLS-Y）两波调查中自我报告的药物使用情况的纵向不一致性。我们发现，在过去一个月、一年和一生中承认使用过药物的受访者百分比与其他研究结果相当，并且与20世纪80年代末药物使用的下降趋势一致。对终生流行率的比较显示，1985年的受访者与其1990年出生队列之间的报告似乎不一致。利用NLS-Y的纵向数据，我们发现，在1984年调查中承认终生使用过大麻或可卡因的人中，约有五分之一在1988年随后否认曾使用过。这些案例中的大多数是报告使用频率较低的人。女性子样本也有类似模式。此外，我们发现，在两次调查之间怀孕的女性更有可能不一致地否认曾使用过药物，而目前怀孕的女性对其过去使用情况的回答更诚实。总体而言，我们发现，尽管大多数人愿意提供其使用情况的准确描述，但研究人员应意识到确实存在报告不足或完全否认的情况。最重要的是，外部因素似乎导致了不准确报告的发生率。
