Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

4. SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUNDINTRODUCTIONIn order to ensure that the samples from the five cities would be comparable, preciseinstructions were given on sampling methods and data collection, so that all the localresearch teams worked in a similar way. Certain earlier surveys -the research intococaine use characteristics in three European cities (Díaz et al, 1992) or the one onecstasy use in Sydney (Solowij and Lee, 1991)- had shown the great difficulties whichemerge when hidden populations are being surveyed. Therefore, some of thesedifficulties were already anticipated and taken into account when planning the surveyso that they could be dealt with as soon as they arose. As we have already seen in thepreceding section (chapter 3), two alternative methodologies were offered to obtain thedisco sample in order to reach the individuals to be interviewed. In this way, each teamcould choose the most appropriate one depending on the difficulties encountered. As aresult of the problems in completing the sample, it has to be added that certain countrieshad to combine methodologies and follow instructions less rigidly. We note, forexample, the difficulties which existed in finding young users among the universities inour survey. There were occasions when having interviewed 1.000 students, we had stillnot found the number of users (between 80 and 90) necessary to complete the sample.This meant we had to use other faculties or departments other than those originallysuggested. In some cities, it was even necessary to fall back on the snowball method tocomplete the sample.From the research point of view, it is preferable to be able to comply with the preestablishedstandards, at all times, but a field survey always produces these challenges.In the previously mentioned work (Díaz et al. 1992) which explored the use of cocainein various European cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona and Turin) through interviews withusers contacted by the snowball method, of the 50 people that comprised the first level,it was only possible to continue on to the second level on 14 occasions, so that a usablesample of 126 interviews was only achieved by means which involved a bias, in spiteof the efforts of the researchers. Therefore, in the present survey, we must be relativelysatisfied by the degree with which the standards were met and which enables us todefend the validity of the results we obtained with the already mentioned rider that theresearch was not carried out with representative samples.Knowledge of the sociodemographic variables responds to diverse requirements.They were used in the research to establish the non-user control groups on the basis of43