A Household Study on the Prevalence of Substance Misuse in Tehran: The need for other methods to estimate the prevalence

Substance misuse is a major public health threat in Iran. The totalnumber of addicts in Iran is estimated to be between 700,000 and 4,000,000.A few limited household studies on the prevalence of substance misuse havebeen performed in Iran. The residents of the sixth district of the municipality of Tehran whowere over the age of 15 were selected as the study population. The samplesize was 2,705. The instrument of the study was face-to-face interviews. 184(6.8%) of the subjects had used at least one substance in theirlives and 142(5.2%) used a substance during the month before theinterviews. 132(4.88%), 10(0.37%), 3(0.11%), 5(0.19%) and 4(15%) of thesubjects reported the use of alcohol, opium, opium residue, heroin, andcannabis respectively during the month before the interviews. The estimate and profile of substance use are different fromother methodologies. This household study indicated lower than expectedprevalence of opioids and higher than expected alcohol use. Indirectestimation methods are probably more appropriate for the prevalence studiesof substance misuse in Iran.