AU - Ekhtiari, Hamed AU - Alam-Mehrjerdi, Zahra AU - Hassani-Abharian, Peman AU - Nouri, Mehri AU - Farnam, Robert AU - Mokri, Azerakhsh TI - Examination and Evaluation of Craving-Inductive Verbal Cues among Persian-Speaking Methamphetamine Abusers PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE TA - icss JN - icss VO - 12 VI - 2 IP - 2 4099 - http://icssjournal.ir/article-1-109-en.html 4100 - http://icssjournal.ir/article-1-109-en.pdf SO - icss 2 ABĀ  - Objective: Drug craving is the main core feature of drug use and relapse. Methamphetamine is a common stimulant in Iran which evokes severe craving in cue exposure. The major aim of the present study is to design and develop a tool for the measurement of craving induced by verbal cues in methamphetamine abusers. Method: In the first step, 15 abusers identified 133 words that induced craving in them. In the next steps the words were divided into seven clusters (drugs, related items, instruments, places, performances, moods, and individuals), and were then incorporated into a Likert scale questionnaire along with 16 neutral words. The questionnaires were administered to 30 participants who were randomly selected from INCAS clinic based on DSM-IV-TR criteria for methamphetamine dependency. Demographics and methamphetamine abuse profiles were obtained based on ASI-Lite; and the inductive power of the words were evaluated subsequently. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS-16 using descriptive statistical methods. Results: The results indicated that the words; methamphetamine, drug, substance, money, glass tube, wallet, pipe, lighter, foil, place of drug purchase, bachelor flat, room of drug use, visiting friends, family argument, sexual arousal, craving, anger, depression, co-abuser, fellow-user and methamphetamine dealer were cues with the highest degree of induction. The list of words was thus prepared. Thereafter, in order to assess attentional bias and drug craving, 24 verbal cues were divided into four six-word groups and were introduced along with two neutral groups for administering in addiction Stroop task and the computer program for assessing attentional bias. Conclusion: Ecologically validated drug craving assessment tasks not only provide research potentials in this field, but can also be used in the design and execution of psychological interventions for “relapse prevention”. In this study, a series of these cues and their potentials were introduced and evaluated. CP - IRAN IN - LG - eng PB - icss PG - 69 PT - Research YR - 2010