Long Term Opiate Users Research Paper

Brett Speck
Professor Ramos
Psychology 140
25 October 2015
Prospective Memory Impairment in
Long-term Opiate Users: An Annotated Bibliography
Terrett, G., Mclennan, S., Henry, J., Biernacki, K., Mercuri, K., Curran, H., & Rendell, P. (2014). Prospective memory impairment in long-term opiate users. Psychopharmacology, 2623-2632. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3432-6.
Intro: Opiate use has remained relatively stable over the past decade. Opiate dependence has been associated with multiple problems and some people report high rates of dissatisfaction in multiple spheres of their lives including finances, family relations and living situations. Neurological changes associated with prolonged opiate use such as decreased

Methods: The study conformed to the ethical standards of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Australian Catholic University ethics committee. Twenty-six adults aged 22 to 52 years were chosen for the opiate-user group and 30 adults aged 18 to 53 years with no history of drug use were chosen for the control group. There was no difference in gender, but the participants in the opiate-user group were long-term users and were all enrolled in an opiate substitution program. Participants were recruited to the opiate-user group with fliers in pharmacies and drug rehabilitation centers, and the control group using social networks. All participants gave informed consent and were given AU$20 (USD$20). Opiate group participants had to be stable on an opiate agonist for at least 2 weeks prior to testing. Potential participants were excluded from both groups if there was history of a neurological condition, a psychiatric disorder, heavy alcohol use, brain injury, used illicit drugs in the 24hrs prior to

A 2 x 2 x 2 mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to study differences between the two groups on PM performance. Opiate users and control were the between-group variable and the within-group variables were PM task (regular, irregular) and PM cue (event, time). All participants were more accurate on event-based than on time-based irregular PM tasks, but did not differ on that of regular PM tasks. There was no difference on regular and irregular PM tasks for event-based tasks, but for time-based tasks, participants were more accurate on regular than irregular PM tasks. It was conducted that the encoding condition (implementation intentions, no strategy) did not have a significant main or interaction effect. The 2 x 2 x 2 mixed ANOVAS conducted for propotion of correct responses on the PM tasks, were then repeated for the proportion of cue-task pairs correctly matched at the end of each virtual day. These analyses showed that a main effect of group involved a lower proportion of correct responses on the recognition matching task by opiate users compared with controls. All participants were able to discriminate PM task actions that were required from those not required. The relationship between overall PM performance with IQ, executive function, sleep, depression, and anxiety was examined for the two groups separately. Opiate users executive functioning was not related to PM performance, but higher levels of