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 relationships, housing, or incarcerations to become reference points for recalling details surrounding drug use and treatment access. The paper concludes that the adminis-tration of the LHC was a resource-intensive process and required special attention to interviewer training and experience with the study population. These factors should be considered and integrated into study plans by researchers using the LHC in addiction research.Keywords: addiction research methodology, life history calendar, opioid dependency

Citation: Fikowski et al. Feasibility of Applying the Life History Calendar in a Population of Chronic Opioid Users to Identify Patterns of Drug Use and Addiction Treatment. Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment 2014:8 73–78 doi: 10.4137/SART.S19419.

Received: August 17, 2014. ReSubmitted: September 22, 2014. Acceptedforpublication: September 25, 2014.