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John K. Watters, PhD
University of California School of Medicine San Francisco

Richard Needle, PhD, MPH; Barry S. Brown, PhD
National Institute on Drug Abuse Rockville, Md

Norman Weatherby, PhD
University of Miami School of Medicine Florida

Robert Booth, PhD
University of Colorado Denver

Mark Williams, PhD
Houston, Tex

JAMA. 1992;268(17):2374-2375.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—Drs McNagny and Parker¹ present the results of their study of the validity of self-reports of recent cocaine use among predominantly African-American patients aged 18 to 34 years in an inner-city, hospital-based, walk-in clinic.¹ Their study reveals that the prevalence of cocaine use in this population is (1) quite high (39% had positive urinalysis for cocaine); (2) higher than self-reported use (only 45.6% with cocaine-positive urinalysis reported use in the past week); and (3) considerably higher than that reflected in the National Household Survey for African Americans in this age group (12%). Among other conclusions are (1) patient self-report of illicit drug use is highly inaccurate; (2) less specific questions result in more valid responses; and (3) policymakers seeking information from surveys of illicit drug use must realize that respondent self-report may provide severe underestimates of use.

This conclusion reaches beyond the limitations of the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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