Diachronic substance use assessment and the emergence of substance use disorders

Substance use is a complex phenomenon that changes during the natural history of consumption. Relevant parameters encompass age of initiation, type and amount of drug consumed per episode, and problems resulting from substance consumption. Comprehensive developmental assessment of substance involvement is thus a prerequisite for conducting rigorous research designed to advance understanding of the progression of substance use behavior to a substance use disorder (SUD). At the Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research, a protocol has been developed for detailed temporal assessment of substance involvement. This article describes the evaluation procedures. The diachronic assessment protocol described herein has yielded several important findings pertaining to substance use behavior and SUD. (C) 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.