Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Sep 25, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 19, 2020 - Nov 14, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 12, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Self-reported subjective effects of analytically confirmed new psychoactive substances consumed by e-psychonauts: A protocol for a longitudinal study using a new, internet-based methodology
ABSTRACT
Background:
During the last few years, the continuous emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS) has become an important public health challenge. Not only has its use been rising both directly and as adulterants of traditional drugs, but also the number of new substances has been rising at a speed way beyond current scientific methodologies capacities. This has caused a remarkable absence of necessary information about newer drug effects on people who use drugs, mental Health professionals and policy makers. Current scientific methodologies have failed to provide enough data in the timeframe when critical decisions must be made, being not only too slow, but also too square. Last, but not least, they dramatically lack high resolution of phenomenological details
Objective:
To characterize a population of e-psychonauts and the subjective effects of the NPS they used during the study duration using a new, internet-based, fast and inexpensive methodology. This would allow bridging an evidence gap between online surveys, which do not provide substance confirmation, and clinical trials, which are too slow and expensive to keep up with the new substances appearing every week.
Methods:
To cover this purpose we designed a highly personalized, observational longitudinal study methodology. Participants will be recruited from online communities of people who use NPS and they will be followed online by means of a continuous objective and qualitative evaluation lasting for at least a year. Also, participants will send samples of the substances they intend to use during that period so they can be analyzed and matched with the effects they report on the questionnaires.
Results:
The research protocol was approved by the “Hospital del Mar Research Institute (IMIM)” IRB on the 11th of December of 2018. Data collection started in August 2019 and was still ongoing at when the protocol was submitted (September 2020). The first data collection period of the study ended in October 2020. Data analysis began on November 2020 and it is still ongoing. The authors expect to submit the first results for publication by the end of 2021. A preliminary analysis was conducted when the manuscript was submitted and was reviewed after it was accepted in February 2021.
Conclusions:
Not available when the protocol is submitted Clinical Trial: Study approved by Hospital del Mar Research Institute IRB (IMIM-CEIC): 2018/8283/I
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