Feasibility of Applying the Life History Calendar in a Population of Chronic Opioid Users to Identify Patterns of Drug Use and Addiction Treatment

Jill Fikowski1,2, Kirsten Marchand1,2, Heather Palis1,2 and Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes1,2

1Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences, Providence Health Care, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada. 2School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Abstract: Uncovering patterns of drug use and treatment access is essential to improving treatment for opioid dependence. The life history calendar (LHC) could be a valuable instrument for capturing time-sensitive data on lifetime patterns of drug use and addiction treatment. This study describes the methodology applied when collecting data using the LHC in a sample of individuals with long-term opioid dependence and aims to identify specific factors that impact the feasibility of administering the LHC interview. In this study, the LHC allowed important events such as births, intimate…