Patients and Methods
We collected all the medical records classified with the diagnosis
of “drug withdrawal syndrome in the newborn” or “narcotics affecting
fetus/newborn through the placenta/breast milk” according to the
“International Classification of Diseases-9” (ICD-9), from 1985 to 1990.
The subjects were contacted by telephone or conventional mail. We also
investigated other databases, such as the Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV) register of the “Municipal Institute of Public Health in
Barcelona”, the “Registry of Tuberculosis Cases of the Control Program
of Barcelona” and the “Death Registry of Catalonia”, none of which
provided useful information.
All the participants were asked to complete a self-administered
interview and monetary compensation was offered to all of them. The
project was approved by the “Clinical Research Ethics Committee of
the Hospital del Mar” and subjects provided informed consent before
the interview.
The interview consisted in 101 items divided into 6 sections. The
“Family History” section consisted of questions about birth parents
(ethnicity, status, age, employment status and education). In the
“Childhood” section the subjects were asked if they were adopted or
had been in foster centers and were questioned about having undergone
physical, sexual or emotional abuse during childhood. Thereafter,
the third section related to “Personal History” included questions
about their current social and economic status (age, marital status,
employment status, education, professional standing, socioeconomic
status, arrests and imprisonment). The socioeconomic assessment was
performed using the “Family Affluence Scale” (FAS) [14] developed by
the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Behavior to establish