Novel Psychoactive Substances: Systematic Review and Evidence-Based Analysis of Literature

BACKGROUND: The research output within the discipline of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) has been evolving since the end of the last decade. The introduction of the concept of evidence-based Medicine led to a revolutionary growth of all fields of medical research. The enhancements of research quality were also paralleled by the development of tools for critical analysis of literature.

MATERIALS & METHODS: The aim of the study is to assess the NPS research output, by means of evaluation of the level-of-evidence and the implemented statistical analyses. An extensive database of near 600 published manuscript was created; the papers were selected from the PubMed/Medline database by using pre-specified keywords. Each manuscript will be systematically scanned for; the first author, research institution, country, year of publication, type of study, statistical analysis, level-of-evidence, and journals of publication. Research efforts from the Middle East were also observed and quantified.

RESULTS: Teams of NPS researchers included members in the range of one to twenty-nine, with and an average of 4.75 authors per publication. Research output was densely mapped in the developed countries including the UK (53%), US (19%), Italy (14%), Germany (14%), and Sweden (10%); the Middle East contribution was minimal (<1%). The top two research institutes were; King’s College London (UK) and Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). Studies included; Cross-sectional analyses (15%), Reviews (18%), and Analytic chemistry (36%). A considerable number of publications (34%) had no statistics at all, while only 14% had inferential statistics. Top journals of publication were; Journal of Psychopharmacology, Current Neuropharmacology, and Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

CONCLUSION: Research output should always be assessed for quality control purposes. This study represents an innovative and systematic method of critical analysis of NPS literature. Future study efforts should be respondent to this study to achieve a better quality of research.