Background: Substance abuse has an impact on various cognitive domains, including memory. Even though this impact has been extensively examined across different subdomains, false memory has been sparsely studied. This systematic review and meta-analysis seek to synthesize the current scientific data concerning false memory formation in individuals with a history of substance abuse.
Methods: PubMed, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and PsycINFO were searched to identify all experimental and observational studies in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Studies were then examined by four independent reviewers and, if they met the inclusion criteria, assessed for their quality. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for randomized controlled trials (RCT) and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklists for quasi-experimental and analytic cross-sectional studies were used to assess the risk of bias.
Results: From the 443 screened studies, 27 (and two more from other sources) were considered eligible for full-text review. A final 18 studies were included in the present review. Of these, 10 were conducted with alcoholics or heavy drinkers, four focused on ecstasy/polydrug users, three were done with cannabis users and one focused on methadone maintenance patients with current cocaine dependence. Regarding false memory type, 15 studies focused on false recognition/recall, and three on provoked confabulation.
Conclusions: None but one of the studies considering false recognition/recall of critical lures found any significant differences between individuals with a history of substance abuse and healthy controls. However, most of the studies taking into account false recognition/recall of related and unrelated events found that individuals with a history of substance abuse showed significantly higher rates of false memories than controls. Future research should continue to consider different types of false memories as well as their potential association with relevant clinical variables.
Background: Adolescent substance abuse is a growing public health concern. Adolescence is the starting point for adult substance misuse. The likelihood of acquiring dependence in adulthood is significantly decreased when substance use is not initiated during adolescence.
Background: Differential vulnerability to alcohol contributes to socioeconomic inequities in alcohol-attributable harm. This study aimed to estimate the sex-/gender-specific joint effects of socioeconomic position (SEP) and heavy episodic drinking or volume of alcohol use on 100% alcohol-attributable emergency department (ED) visits.
Methods: We conducted a cohort study among 36 900 men and 39 700 women current and former alcohol consumers aged 15-64 from population-representative Canadian Community Health Surveys (2003-2008) linked to administrative ED visit data through 2017 in Ontario and Alberta.
Background: Substance use among youths is a significant global and local issue. Youth who engage in substance use often experience various psychosocial, health, economic, and other problems. While governmental and non-governmental organizations in North Wollo and Waghimra Zones offer social services, their effectiveness in preventing and controlling substance use remains largely unstudied.
Background: Amphetamine-type stimulant (ATS) abuse is strongly associated with an elevated risk of HIV infection and transmission. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) serves as the primary approach for managing HIV infection and AIDS progression. However, ATS abuse diminishes the efficacy of ART in HIV/AIDS patients, amplifying the vulnerability to immunological non-response (INR) and ultimately increasing the incidence rate and mortality of opportunistic infections.
