Stimulant Use and Associated Health Risks Among Student and Non-Student Emerging Adults

Abstract

Illicit stimulant use (e.g., MDMA, “ecstasy”) constitutes a problem among emerging adults (EAs; 18–25 years old). Prescription stimulants are among the most frequently misused medications in this age-group with past year prevalence rates reported as high as 30% in predominantly student samples in the United States. We examined the association of stimulant use with four health risks reported in this age-group—risky alcohol use, other illicit drug use, sleep difficulties, and psychological distress. In a community sample of 1,938 student (n = 929) and nonstudent (n = 1009) EAs (mean age = 21.3; SD = 2.2; 52.7% males), 14.6% reported past month stimulant use; rates were 12.1% and 17.2% among students and nonstudents, respectively. Findings demonstrated a significant association between stimulant use and all four health risks among students and nonstudents EAs. The association between stimulant and opioid use was significantly weaker for students than for nonstudents. The connection between stimulant use and common health risks should be addressed in behavioral health and school settings.

Keywords

stimulants alcohol use substance use prevention emerging adults

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arria

A. M.

Caldeira

K. M.

O’Grady

K. E.

Vincent

K. B.

Johnson

E. P.

Wish

E. D.

(2008). Nonmedical use of prescription stimulants among college students: Associations with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder and polydrug use. Pharmacotherapy, 28, 156–169. doi:10.1592/phco.28.2.156

Arria

A. M.

DuPont

R. L.

(2010). Nonmedical prescription stimulant use among college students: Why we need to do something and what we need to do. Journal of Addictive Diseases, 29, 417–426. doi:10.1080/10550887.2010.509273

Chen

L. Y.

Crum

R. M.

Strain

E. C.

Martins

S. S.

Mojtabai

(2015). Patterns of concurrent substance use among adolescent nonmedical ADHD stimulant users. Addictive Behaviors, 49, 1–6.

DeSantis

A. D.

Webb

E. M.

Noar

S. M.

(2008). Illicit use of prescription ADHD medications on a college campus: A multimethodological approach. Journal of American College Health, 57, 315–324. doi:10.3200/JACH.57.3.315-324

Hontz

(2015). A systematic review of recent literature on religiosity, stress, depression, and prescription stimulant misuse (Thesis). Faculty of Baylor University, Waco, TX.

Johnson

L. D.

O’Malley

P. M.

Bachman

J. G.

Schulenberg

J. E.

Miech

R. A.

(2014). Monitoring the future national survey results on drug use, 1975–2013: Vol. 2. College students and adults ages 19–55. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan.

Jones

C. M.

(2012). Frequency of prescription pain reliever nonmedical use: 2002–2003 and 2009–2010. Archives of Internal Medicine, 172, 1265–1267. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.2533

Kroenke

Spitzer

R. L.

Williams

J. B.

(2003). The patient health questionnaire-2: Validity of a two-item depression screener. Medical Care, 41, 1284–1292. doi:10.1097/01.MLR.0000093487.78664.3C

Martins

S. S.

Kim

J. H.

Chen

L. Y.

Levin

Keyes

K. M.

Cerda

Storr

C. L.

(2015). Nonmedical prescription drug use among US young adults by educational attainment. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 50, 713–724. doi:10.1007/s00127-014-0980-3

10.

McCabe

S. E.

West

B. T.

Teter

C. J.

Boyd

C. J.

(2014). Trends in medical use, diversion, and nonmedical use of prescription medications among college students from 2003 to 2013: Connecting the dots. Addictive Behaviors, 39, 1176–1182. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2014.03.008

11.

MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. 2015. Rules of thumb on magnitudes of effect sizes. Retrieved October 8, 2015, from http://imaging.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/statswiki/FAQ/effectSize

12.

O’Brien

M. S.

Anthony

J. C.

(2005). Risk of becoming cocaine dependent: Epidemiological estimates for the United States, 2000–2001. Neuropsychopharmacology, 30, 1006–1018. doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1300681

13.

Office of National Drug Control Policy. (2011). Epidemic: Responding to America's prescription drug abuse crisis. Retrieved May 20, 2015, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/prescription-drug-abuse

14.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2013). Office of applied studies. Drug abuse warning network. National estimates of drug-related emergency department visits, HHS Publication No. SMA 13-4760, DAWN Series D-39. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

15.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). National Survey on drug use and health: Trends in prevalence of various drugs for ages 12 or older, ages 12 to 17, ages 18 to 25, and ages 26 or older; 2011–2013. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

16.

U.S. Department of Commerce. (2012). In Fall Enrollment in Colleges and Universities (Ed.), Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (CPS), October, 1967 through 2012. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.