Objective Testing: Urine and Other Drug Tests

Abstract

Drug testing, when carefully collected and thoughtfully interpreted, offers a critical adjunct to clinical care and substance use treatment. However, because test results can be misleading if not interpreted in the correct clinical context, clinicians should always conduct a careful interview with adolescent patients to understand what testing is likely to show and then use testing to validate or refute their expectations. Because of the ease with which samples can be tampered, providers should also carefully reflect on their own collection protocols and sample validation procedures to ensure optimal accuracy."

Keywords: Adolescents; Ethanol; Street drugs; Substance abuse detection; Substance-related disorders; Urine.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Figures

FIGURE 1

Drug detection times for different biologic specimens used in drug testing. *Very broad estimates that also depend on the substance, the amount and frequency of the substance taken, and other factors previously listed. †As long as the patch is worn, usually 7 days. ‡7–10 days after use to the time passed to grow the length of hair, but may be limited to 6 months hair growth. However, most laboratories analyze the amount of hair equivalent to 3 months of growth.