Investigation of psychoactive substance use in undiagnosed patients who applied to neurology and psychiatry clinics for the first time

Objective: In order to evaluate the use of licit and/or illecit psychoactive substances for non-medical purposes, and it is important to the use of psychoactive substances and to reveal this profile. In this study, it is aimed to investigate licit and/or illecit psychoactive substances by advanced analytical methods (liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, LC-MS/MS) in urine samples of adult and undiagnosed patients who admitted to the neurology and psychiatry clinics of Çukurova University Hospital for the first time. It is aimed to determine the relationship between some basic demographic characteristics of the cases and their use of psychoactive substances. Materials and Methods: In this study, urine samples were collected from adult and undiagnosed cases that admitted to Çukurova University Hospital Neurology and Psychiatry clinics for the first time between August-December 2020, and were referred to the central laboratory. 91 samples from the central laboratory were collected. Results: Among the positive substances, 77% of the cases coming to the central laboratory were male, the mean age was 32, 61.5% came from the neurology clinic; it was determined that the use of multiple substances was 58.3%, the use of illegal substances was 16.7%, and the most common substance use was other legal psychoactive drugs with 61.1%. Discussion and Conclusion: It will contribute to the detection of the use of psychoactive substances that cause serious toxic effects and deaths, both for therapeutic purposes and forensic abuse, and to develop sensitive methods against false results that may occur in substance detection.