Designer cathinone and amphetamines are synthetical analogues of stimulant phenethylamines, including ring-substituted cathinones that are claimed to have effects similar to those of cocaine, hence, intentionally or unintentionally used for recreation purposes and as a substitute. The information regarding designer cathinone and amphetamines use is publicly limited.

Thus, the current study investigates the occurrences of designer cathinones and amphetamines among outpatients attending the Methadone Maintenance Clinic (MMC) for opioid addiction.

A total of 126 urine samples were collected to investigate cathinones and amphetamines using Liquid Chromatography Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometry followed by a post-run library matching.

Results showed that 31.75% of studied patients had remnants of cathinones compared to 15.49% found to have remnants of amphetamines. The results of the fitted simple logistic regression model showed that cathinone use was significantly associated with the age of patients (P=0.027), while sex (P=0.324) and duration of treatment (P=0.940) were not significant predictors of cathinone use. Likewise, the results of multiple logistic regression indicate that the age of patients (P=0.015) continues to be a significant predictor of cathinone use. These findings show that, even though patients attended methadone clinics to recover from opioid addiction, they continue to use other addictive products with a similar mechanism of action to drugs used for treatments.

The use of other addictive products may cause harm to patients due to likely interactions of cathinones with other drugs, increasing drug toxicity or reducing the treatment efficacy for the patients attending methadone clinics.