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Chulalongkorn Medical Journal

Abstract

Background : Subjective craving, a desire to take a substance, occurs when individualswith substance dependence are exposed to specific cues. However,effects of cue exposure on inhalant craving have not been studied.Objective : The objective of this study is to study craving responses when individualswho are receiving inhalant dependency treatment at Thanyarak Instituteare watching inhalant video cues.Method : Subjective inhalant craving responses of the thirty-four male inhalantdependent patients were measured by the modified version of PennAlcohol Craving Scale for Inhalants (PACS-inhalants) and the VisualAnalog Scale (VAS). The instruments were shown every five minutes on acomputer screen before the test and right after exposure of each ofthe three sets of silent video cues for inhalants (one-minute length per setof video cues) and each of the three sets of neutral video every five minutes(one-minute length per set of neutral video). Levels of systolic and diastolicblood pressures and pulse rate were also measured. Data were analyzedusing repeated measure ANOVA. Scores on PACS-inhalant and VAS werealso tested for correlation using Pearson’s correlation test.Results : Craving responses as measured by PACS-inhalants and VAS were at highcorrelation (Pearson correlation = 0.83, p < 0.001). The effects of time oncraving responses during exposure to inhalant video cues were observed(PACS-inhalants; p < 0.001, F3.1, 102.2 = 19.7) (VAS-craving; p < 0.001,F5.0, 164.3 = 5.7). Post-hoc analysis of PACS-inhalants and VAS showeddifferences of craving responses at the times between cue and neutralvideos (cues > neutral videos). However, there were differences of cravingat the times between pre-test and cue exposure only when craving wasmeasured by PACS-inhalants (cues > pre-test), but not by VAS. In addition,the effects of inhalant cues on systolic blood pressure were observedwhen the blood pressures are compared during cue exposure with neutralvideo, but not with the pre-test.Conclusions : Our findings show evidence of the effect of exposure to inhalant videocues on increasing of subjective craving response. Although non-clinicallysignificant, a statistically significant difference between exposure to videocues and neutral videos were observed.

Publisher

Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University

First Page

147

Last Page

161

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