Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research and Health Care, Vol 8(S1), 63-71, 2016 ISSN (Online) : 2250-1460 DOI: 10.18311/ajprhc/2016/7651 * Author for correspondence Abstract Substance/alcohol abuse is an important public health threat in most countries. Social stigmatization and legal restrictions prevent accurate and direct estimate of prevalence of substance/alcohol abuse in Iran. This study aimed to estimate of the prevalence of alcohol and substance use among Iranian patients who were admitted to operating rooms of a general hospital in Tehran and identified risk factors that may predict alcohol and substance use. This cross-sectional study was conducted among all consecutive patients who were admitted to 16 operating rooms in Vali-e-Asr General Educational Hospital (Tehran, Iran) during March 2014 to September 2015. Data were derived from a medical history form prior to operation by trained nurses who were working in the operating rooms. Among 1136 patients admitted to operating rooms, 105 (28.7%) men and 21 (2.7%) women were substance/alcohol users. The main substance of abuse was opium (57.3%) followed by alcohol consumption (25.6%) and water pipe smoking (14.8%). Cigarette smoking was reported by 110 (30.1%) men and 21 (2.7%) women. Sex, cigarette smoking and family history of alcohol and substance abuse predicted 42.3% of the variance in substance abuse/alcohol consumption. Substance use, especially opium, alcohol, water pipe tobacco and cigarette smoking were found to be significantly high particularly among male patients. Being a man, current cigarette smoking and having a first-degree family member who had abused substances should be considered when planning preventive or therapeutic programs. Prevalence of Substance Abuse/Alcohol Consumption and their Predictors among Patients Admitted in Operating Rooms of a General Educational Hospital, Tehran, Iran S. Shohreh Alavi 1 , Ramin Mehrdad 1 and Jalil Makarem 2* 1 Center for Research on Occupational Diseases, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; j-makarem@tums.ac.ir Keywords: Alcohol Drinking, Prevalence, Smoking, Substance Abuse 1. Introduction Nowadays, most societies face the serious challenge of substance abuse, which is ofen associated with social problems. Substance abuse is closely related to cultural, religious, economic, social, and historical aspects of a Community 1 . Ofcial statistics and indirect estimations declared the approximate total number of addicts in Iran to be between 700,000 and 4,000,000. However, these estimations are in-accurate and crude 2 . In other words, accurate assessment of the prevalence of substance and alcohol abuse and dependence (due to legal and religious restrictions and social stigmatization) is not possible in Iran, because respondents may not always be honest or accurate about their substance use. On the other hand, substance and alcohol abuse have acute and chronic physical harms to the organs of users 3 and complicate the health problems of the medical patients 1,4,5 so using these substances increase the rate of physical co-morbidities 6 . Some of the consequences of opium/opioid use are listed as follows: • Changes in biochemical parameters of human’s serum 7 ; • Difculties in Peri-operative pain management; • A high tolerance for opiate analgesics and a need to higher and more frequent doses to achieve desired brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research and Health Care (AJPRHC)