BOSTON – College students who abuse opioids do so for different reasons than students who abuse stimulants, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.
Opioid users were more likely to report that they used the drugs to relax or to get high, while stimulant users were more likely to say that they used the drugs to help improve performance at school or to increase alertness.
These differences could be helpful in crafting interventions, said Julie Brevard of Inflexxion Inc., a health, science, and technology research firm that is based in Newton, Mass.
Ms. Brevard, along with principal investigator Sarah Lord, Ph.D., and colleagues at Inflexxion, conducted an online survey of college students who admitted to ever using prescription opioids and stimulants recreationally.
The survey was advertised on an online social networking forum for college students and at the 27 colleges nationwide with the highest usage of the networking forum Web site.
The researchers received 689 responses, 522 of which passed data validity checks and were analyzed. The research was funded with a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
About 61% of the respondents reported that they had used both stimulants and opioids. Of the rest, 18% had used opioids only and 21% had used stimulants only. About 41% of respondents said they were regular stimulant users, which was defined as using the drug once a month or more. And 25% of respondents reported that they were regular opioid users.
Among opioid users, more than 70% said they used the prescription pain relievers to relax and nearly 68% said they took them to get high. A smaller percentage (27%) reported taking opioids to help with depression and anxiety or for chronic pain (19%).
Regular opioid users were more likely than infrequent users to cite depression or pain management as reasons for use. They also reported more symptoms of abuse and dependence and beliefs that prescription medications could give them a better high than other drugs, said Ms. Brevard.
Among stimulant users, nearly 78% reported that they took the drugs to help them perform better in school, and nearly 74% said they took them to help increase alertness. Nearly 24% reported they took stimulants to lose weight or prevent weight gain.
Regular stimulant users were more likely than were infrequent users to report that weight loss was a reason for use. And similar to opioid users, frequent stimulant users were also more likely than infrequent users to report symptoms of abuse and dependence and to have more positive views about prescription drug abuse.
Nearly half (49%) of respondents said they first used prescription drugs nonmedically during the years they were in high school. “It seems like high school is a critical experimentation time,” said Ms. Brevard.
The college students who were surveyed said that they accessed the prescription drugs primarily through friends (84%). Parents, other family members, and the Internet were also avenues for access. About 7% of respondents reported that they had a valid prescription for all the medications they used.