Evaluating Amphetamine and Methamphetamine Abuse Frequency in Hospitalized Patients of the Psychiatric Ward of Farshchian Hospital in Hamadan City

Amphetamine and methamphetamine are man-made materials. They were only used as drugs at the beginning, but gradually outspreaded as psychedelics because of their sympathomimetic effects. Different studies have shown that the frequency of amphetamine and methamphetamine abuse has been increasing; also, there is a close relationship in amphetamine and methamphetamine abuse with psychiatric disorders. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the frequency of amphetamine and methamphetamine abuse in psychiatric inpatients and evaluate the effects of different factors on that.
In this cross-sectional-descriptive study, 2543 patients were admitted to the psychiatric ward of Hamadan Farshchian hospital in 2013; in order to evaluate amphetamine and methamphetamine abuse, they were enrolled. For detection of amphetamine and methamphetamine, urine test using immunochemical and chromatographic methods was conducted.
The frequency of amphetamine and methamphetamine abuse in psychiatric inpatients was 7.3% (186 cases). Most of the abusers were male (87%), young (mean age: 36 years) and married (60%). However, there was no significant association between age, gender, marital status and frequency of abuse (P > 0.05). Half of abusers were unemployed and 67% of them did not have high school diploma. The most important psychiatric disorder among the abusers of these two substances was bipolar mood disorder (65.1%). Moreover, in this study, there was no significant association between amphetamine and methamphetamine test results (P > 0.05).
The results showed that the frequency of amphetamine and methamphetamine abuse in psychiatric patients was more than other people and patients with mood disorders were at a greater risk. Furthermore, this study indicated that the prevalence of abuse of these substances among females has increased compared to previous studies.