Nondirect Screening Methods

The use of substances that are harmful during pregnancy continues to be an issue in society. Despite a variety of methods to promote awareness and to assist in cessation of harmful substances, pregnant women still continue to use alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs. With this known issue of substance abuse during pregnancy there still remains the issue of women not reporting the extent of their drug use during the perinatal period. A research study by Ondersma et al. (2012) investigated whether using an indirect screening method would be useful in identifying women who used drugs during the perinatal period.
Methods
Ondersma et al. (2012) sought to develop an indirect screening tool that could be used to determine drug use in the perinatal period. The need of an indirect screening tool was necessary due to the continued under reporting of drug use using direct screening tools. In order to
Limitations of this study include the lack of generalization of this study because of the use of a homogenous population. The authors of the study did account for this as they were trying to develop a screening tool. Another limitation includes the screening tool itself as it is specific to this study. In the development of the screening tool it was more likely that the cross validation group would test positive for drug use when compared to the developmental group. Further investigation of the tool involves the order in which items are administered to the research subjects as this is known to alter results. A great strength of the study is the use of urine and hair samples to help substantiate the use of the indirect screening tool. This standard demonstrated that drug use during pregnancy is more likely to show drug use outside of