Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence, associated factors, and opinions regarding nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NMUPS) in Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students.
Methods: An electronic survey was distributed to professional year 1 through 4 for students at 2 schools of pharmacy (public and private) in North Carolina. The survey was available for 3 weeks. Descriptive statistics (proportion of responders plus 95% confidence intervals [CIs]) were used to describe the primary objective.
Results: Of the 1043 surveys distributed, 407 were completed giving a 39% response rate. The results indicated that 9% (95% CI: 6.44-11.93) of PharmD students acknowledge NMUPS at least once during their pharmacy education. Additionally, 3% (95% CI: 1.90-5.45) acknowledge NMUPS at least once during the current pharmacy school year (past 5 months). Nonmedical prescription stimulant users were 9 times more likely to participate in NMUPS prior to pharmacy school (P < .0001) and 4.5 times more likely to use other illicit substances (P = .0076).
Conclusion: The study identified the PharmD student population as high risk of abuse of prescription drug stimulants, which requires further research and attention. Additionally, there was a clear upward trend in the prevalence of NMUPS, and this misuse was associated with other detrimental behaviors.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0897190013508139 | DOI Listing |
J Addict Med
November 2024
From the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking, and Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (EP, RJE-P, TSS, CWE, VVM, SEM); Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (RJE-P, CWE, SEM); Department of Psychology, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX (TSS); Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (VVM); and Lighthouse Institute at Chestnut Health Systems, Eugene, OR (TKD).
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
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Swansea Community Farm, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom.
Background: As an umbrella term, social prescribing offers varied routes into society which promise to support, enhance, and empower individual citizens to take control of their own health and wellbeing. Globally healthcare systems are struggling to cope with the increasing demands of an ageing population and the NHS (UK) is no exception. Social prescribing is heralded as a means to relieve the burden on primary care and provide support for the 20% of patients whose needs are non-medical.
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January 2025
Department of Family Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Synthetic illicit drugs, such as nitazenes and fentanyls, are becoming commonplace in countries around the world, including in Europe, Australia, and Latin America, which raises concern for overdose crises like those seen in North America. An important dimension of the risk represented by synthetic drugs is the fact that they are increasingly packaged in counterfeit pill form. These pills-often indistinguishable from authentic pharmaceuticals-have substantially widened the scope of populations susceptible to synthetic drug overdose in North America (eg, among adolescents experimenting with pills or tourists from the USA seeking psychoactive medications from pharmacies in Mexico).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Med Sci
January 2025
Department of Medicine and Medical Specialities. University of Alcala, Alcala de Henares, 28801 Madrid, Spain.
Antiepileptics and antidepressants are frequently prescribed for chronic pain, but their efficacy and potential adverse effects raise concerns, including dependency issues. Increased prescriptions, sometimes fraudulent, prompted reclassification of antiepileptics in some countries. Our aim is to comprehend opinions, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes towards co-analgesics from online discussions on X (formerly known as Twitter), offering insights closer to reality than conventional surveys.
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