History of Solvent Abuse

Incenses, perfumes and spices have probably always been used in ceremonial worship and religious ritual. However, in sofar as it is possible to make the distinction, these substances have been used primarily for their aromatic qualities rather than for their intoxicating effects. 

Subsequently the abuse of thinner decreased, but it is still used.by children 

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If solvent abuse causes psychological impairment, it follows that not only should the impairment be present in those with a history of solvent abuse, but also that the impairment should not have been present at the same level prior to the beginning of that history. In order to provide a measure of ability antecedent to solvent abuse in the present study, the results of all standardised educational tests that had been administered at or before the time of transfer from primary to secondary school were obtained from the schools. The child s current test performance could therefore be compared with his or her performance prior to solvent abuse, thus making it possible to examine whether the performance of the cases had deteriorated since they started sniffing. These data also made it possible to take account statistically of any differences between groups in ability antecedent to solvent abuse. 

An individually administered self-completed questionnaire was used to ascertain the child s use of solvents during the interval between the initial and follow-up assessments. This was preferred to an interview assessment because, as explained above, the follow-up assessments were not conducted blind , and it was felt that it would be difficult to avoid bias in the degree of thoroughness with which the children were questioned if the examiner was aware of the child s prior history of solvent abuse. The questionnaire was administered at the end of the assessment after all of the psychological tests had been done. It included questions about the use of cigarettes, alcohol and solvents during the interval between the initial and follow-up assessments, and the use of cannabis, amphetamines, cocaine, heroin and any other drugs at any time in the past. 

The statistical significance of the differences between cases and controls on categorical variables was examined by means of chi-squared tests differences between cases and controls on continuous measures were examined using t-tests for matched samples. The effect of frequency of solvent abuse and other multilevel factors relating to history of solvent abuse were examined by means of analyses of variance. Where appropriate, further details of the statistical methods used for particular sets of analyses are provided in the relevant parts of the Results section. 

The main set of variables was used routinely to examine the relationships between psychological test performance and the various aspects of the child s history of solvent abuse the subsidiary set was used only for the basic comparison between cases and controls. 

The cases and controls were compared by subtracting the score of each case from that of its matched control and performing r-tests to examine whether the mean difference scores differed significantly from zero. The effect of frequency of solvent abuse (and other multi-level factors relating to the child s history of solvent abuse) was examined by means of analyses of variance carried out on these mean difference scores to test the hypothesis that the subgroups differed significantly from each other. 

The History and Pattern of Solvent Abuse in Cases Confirmed at Interview... 

As described earlier, the interview included some additional questions about the child s history and practice of solvent abuse which were not asked on the self-completed screening questionnaire. Table 20 shows when the cases had first sniffed solvents and how recently they had done so. Just over half of them had first sniffed during the 12 months preceding the interview and a similar proportion had last sniffed during the preceding six months. Eight of the 103 cases on whom data were obtained had sniffed during the week prior to interview. 

Heart failure with a dilated cardiomyopathy occurred in a 15-year-old boy with a 2-year history of intermittent solvent abuse (8). 

The evidence indicating that solvent abuse may result in neurological impairment has come from reports of single cases or of small groups of cases. In virtually all cases it has been concerned with people whose sniffing history extends over many years. 

It seems likely that the much stronger associations with social disadvantage found in many previous studies are due in part to the fact that the solvent abusers in all of the early studies cited above had either been apprehended by the police or referred for psychiatric treatment (or both). Such cases are more likely to come from disorganised and disadvantaged homes. By contrast, the sample in the present study was unselected for psychiatric or forensic history. 

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