Using the PROMOTE Screener to Identify Psychosocial Risk Factors for Prenatal Substance Use

There is an urgent need to improve the identification of psychosocial vulnerabilities in clinical practice (eg, stress, unstable living conditions) and examine their contribution to prenatal substance use, especially for legal substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and recently, cannabis.

We conducted a retrospective chart review of 1842 patients who completed the PROMOTE screening instrument during their first prenatal visit to outpatient clinics of a New York State health system in 6/2019-11/2020. The PROMOTE includes 18 core items to assess psychosocial vulnerabilities including the NIDA Quick Screen assessing past year substance use. Outcomes were tobacco, cannabis, and alcohol use during pregnancy based on electronic medical record abstraction including clinical notes, self-report, or urine toxicology.

A total of 188 (10.2%) patients used at least 1 substance prenatally, including 132 (7.2%) tobacco, 50 (2.7%) cannabis, and 45 (2.4%) alcohol. Two of the NIDA Quick Screen items (past year tobacco use and past year illegal drug use) were associated in the bivariate analysis with greater use risk of all 3 substances. Additional risk factors uniquely associated with specific prenatal substance use variables include low education predicting tobacco use (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 2.74, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.43-5.23), being unpartnered predicting cannabis use (AOR = 3.37, 95% CI = 1.21-9.39), and major life events predicting alcohol use (AOR = 3.25, 95% CI = 1.439-7.38).

Utilizing brief psychosocial self-screening instruments such as the PROMOTE can help identify and refer at-risk patients to appropriate care. Particular attention should be paid to life context including partner support, emotional health, stress, and past year substance use.