Aims To establish the prevalence of recanting of life‐time inhalant use, identify correlates of recanting to gain insight to its causes and develop a method for distinguishing recanters who truly are versus are not life‐time users of inhalants.
Design and setting Longitudinal survey data from students in 62 South Dakota middle schools who were participating in a field trial to evaluate a school‐based drug prevention program.
Measurements At grades 7–8, participants reported on their life‐time inhalant use, other drug use and drug‐related beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.
Findings Forty‐nine per cent of students who reported life‐time inhalant use at grade 7 recanted their reports a year later. Comparison of students who recanted inhalant use with those who did or did not report inhalant use consistently on drug‐related beliefs, attitudes and behaviors at grades 7 and 8 suggested that, whereas some inhalant use recanting reflects denial of past behavior, some reflects erroneous initial reporting. Based on a latent mixture model fitted to the multivariate distribution of grade 7 and grade 8 responses of recanters and consistent reporters, we calculated the probability that each recanter was, in fact, a life‐time inhalant user. An estimated 67% of the recanters in our sample appear to be life‐time inhalant users who admitted use in grade 7 and then denied that use at grade 8; 33% appear to be students who reported use incorrectly at grade 7 and then corrected that error at grade 8.
Conclusions Inhalant use recanting is a significant problem that, if not handled carefully, is likely to have a considerable impact on our understanding of the etiology of inhalant use and efforts to prevent it.
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