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A new study shows that at some middle schools and high schools in the United States, 1 in 4 teens say they have abused prescription stimulants to treat ADHD. noticeable decline in the previous year.
Lead author Sean Esteban McCabe, director of the Research Center, said: “This is the first national study to look at the use of non-medical prescription stimulants by middle and high school students, and we did discovered many cases of abuse. in Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking, and Health at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
“In some schools, there is little or no substance abuse, while in others, more than 25 percent attend,” said McCabe, who is also a professor of nursing at the University of Michigan School of Nursing. have used stimulants in a non-medical manner. “This study is a big wake-up call.”
Non-medical stimulant use may include taking more than the usual dose for pleasure, or taking the drug along with alcohol or other drugs to get high, research in advance find, find, find out.
Students also abuse drugs or “take drugs that someone gives them because of academic stress – they try to stay up late to study or finish homework,” says pediatrician, Dr Deepa Camenga, deputy director of the pediatric program at the Academy. Yale Program on Drugs in New Haven, Connecticut.
“We know this is happening in colleges. Camenga, who was not involved in the study, said a major problem with the new study is that the abuse and sharing of stimulant prescription drugs is happening in middle and high schools, Not just at university.
Published on Tuesday in the magazine Open JAMA networkThe study analyzed data collected between 2005 and 2020 by Tracking the Future, a federal survey that has measured drug and alcohol use among high school students nationwide each year since 1975.
In the dataset used for this study, questions were asked to more than 230,000 adolescents in grades 8, 10, and 12 in a nationally representative sample of 3,284 high schools.
Schools with the highest percentage of Teenagers using prescribed ADHD medication Research shows that about 36% of students are likely to have abused prescription stimulants in the past year. McCabe said schools with few or no students currently using such treatments are much less likely to have the problem, but it’s not going away.
“We know that the two biggest sources are leftover medication, perhaps from family members like siblings and visiting friends who may have gone to another school,” he said.
According to the study, suburban schools in all regions of the United States, except the Northeast, have higher rates of teen abuse of ADHD medications, as do schools where one or Many parents often have college degrees.
Schools with more Caucasian students and schools with moderate drinking students were also more likely to see youth substance abuse.
According to the analysis, at the individual level, students who said they had used marijuana in the past 30 days were four times more likely to abuse medication for ADHD than teenagers who did not use marijuana.
In addition, teens who reported using current or former ADHD medication were about 2.5% more likely to abuse stimulants than other teens. Research shows people who have never used stimulants.
But these findings aren’t just due to the abuse of drugs by adolescents with ADHD. “We still found an important association, even when we excluded students who had never been assigned ADHD treatment.”
Data collection for the study lasted until 2020. Since then, New stats shows that prescriptions for stimulants have increased by 10% in 2021 across most age groups. At the same time, there is a nationwide shortage of Adderall, one of the most common ADHD medications, leaving many patients unable to fill or refill their prescription.
The risks are very high: Improper use of stimulants over time can lead to stimulant use disorders, which can lead to anxiety, depression, psychosis and seizures, experts say know.
If abused or combined with alcohol or other drugs, sudden health consequences can occur. Side effects may include “paranoia, dangerously high body temperature and irregular heartbeat, especially if the stimulant is taken in large doses or in other ways than swallowing a pill, “according to the report. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Research has also shown that people who abuse ADHD medications are more likely to suffer from substance use disorder.
Experts say stimulant abuse has increased over the past two decades as more and more teenagers diagnosed and prescribed those drugs – studies have McCabe said 1 in 9 high school students reported using stimulant therapy to treat ADHD.
For children with ADHD who use medication appropriately, stimulants can be an effective treatment. They “protect the health of a child,” Camenga said. “Teenagers who are properly diagnosed and treated and are very well monitored – they are less likely to develop new mental health problems or new substance use disorders.”
The solution to the problem of substance abuse in middle and high school students is not to restrict drug use to kids who really need them, McCabe stresses.
Instead, we need to look very long and hard at school strategies that are more or less effective in curbing substance abuse, he said. “Parents can ensure that the schools their children attend have safe drug storage and strict dispensing policies. And ask about the prevalence of abuse – that data is available to every school.”
Families can also help, he added, by talking to their children about how to deal with friends who approach them wanting a pill or two to party or study all night.
“You’d be surprised how many kids don’t know what to say,” McCabe said. “Parents can role-play with their kids to give them choices about what to say so they’re ready when it happens.”
Parents and guardians Controlled medications should always be stored in a locked box, he added, and shouldn’t be afraid to count pills and update refills early.
“Finally, if parents suspect any form of abuse, they should contact their child’s prescriber immediately,” McCabe said. “That child should be tested and evaluated immediately.”
