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Raising Awareness About Prescription and Stimulant Abuse in College Students Through On-Campus Community Involvement Projects.

ABSTRACT: As prescription stimulants become more common on college campuses, concerns have been raised about the abuse of these drugs by college students. Estimates are that up to 20% of college students abuse prescription stimulants, most often by ingesting medications not prescribed to them. In an effort to raise awareness and disseminate information about the potential harmful effects of abusing prescription stimulants, students enrolled in a Health Psychology course participated in small-group community involvement projects. This paper describes the value of such projects, details the specific projects completed by the students, how the projects were graded and assessed, and discusses the usefulness of these and similar projects in neuroscience-related courses.

SUBMITTER: Kennedy S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6312145 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Raising Awareness About Prescription and Stimulant Abuse in College Students Through On-Campus Community Involvement Projects.

Kennedy Susan S

Journal of undergraduate neuroscience education : JUNE : a publication of FUN, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience 20181215 1

As prescription stimulants become more common on college campuses, concerns have been raised about the abuse of these drugs by college students. Estimates are that up to 20% of college students abuse prescription stimulants, most often by ingesting medications not prescribed to them. In an effort to raise awareness and disseminate information about the potential harmful effects of abusing prescription stimulants, students enrolled in a Health Psychology course participated in small-group communi ...[more]

PMID: 30618499

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Project description:BackgroundPrescription drug misuse is an escalating public health problem that is prevalent among college students. Various factors, such as sex, age, race, mental health conditions, and fraternity and sorority membership, increase the risk for prescription drug misuse. Peer influences may also pose significant risks for starting prescription drug misuse, because peers are the primary source of misused prescription drugs among college students.ObjectivesTo examine college students' beliefs about prescription drug misuse among their peers and to understand their beliefs about the available and potential intervention efforts to reduce prescription drug misuse.MethodWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of 312 college students aged 18 to 30 years who were enrolled in a large midwestern US university. The survey included questions about the responders' demographic characteristics, beliefs, and perceptions regarding prescription drug misuse among their peers and potential reduction programs for prescription drug misuse.ResultsThe respondents' mean age was 21 years, and most (65%) respondents were women. A majority (90%) of the respondents were enrolled in the university as full-time students. More than 60% of the respondents reported knowing someone with prescription drug misuse in the past 12 months. Fraternity or sorority members were more likely to report peer prescription drug misuse than nonmembers (83% vs 60%, respectively; P = .017). Stimulants were the most misused drug class, accounting for 75% of all reported peer prescription drug misuse. Approximately 60% of the misused prescription drugs were sourced from peers, which included friends, roommates, and classmates. A total of 73% of respondents said that prescription drug misuse was a problem among college students and 67% agreed that interventions were needed to reduce prescription drug misuse. The perceived need for interventions varied by peer prescription drug misuse. A total of 90% of students whose peers did not misuse prescription drugs said that interventions were needed, but only 67% of those with peer prescription drug misuse thought that interventions were needed.ConclusionOur findings indicate that peer prescription drug misuse is very common among college students, and the most misused drug class is stimulants. Survey respondents perceived that the current interventions used to address prescription drug misuse are not very effective or may not be targeting the right population. Peer prescription drug misuse influences college students' perceptions about the risks and harms of prescription drug misuse, as well as the need for interventions.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Depression is a predominant feature of many psychological problems leading to extreme behaviors and, in some cases, suicide. Campus information systems keep detailed and reliable student behavioral data; however, whether these data can reflect depression and we know the differences in behavior between depressive and nondepressive students are still research problems. OBJECTIVE:The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behavioral patterns of depressed students by using multisource campus data and exploring the link between behavioral preferences and depressive symptoms. The campus data described in this paper include basic personal information, academic performance, poverty subsidy, consumption habit, daily routine, library behavior, and meal habit, totaling 121 features. METHODS:To identify potentially depressive students, we developed an online questionnaire system based on a standard psychometric instrument, the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). To explore the differences in behavior of depressive and nondepressive students, the Mann-Whitney U test was applied. In order to investigate the behavioral features of different depressive symptoms, factor analysis was used to divide the questionnaire items into different symptom groups and then correlation analysis was employed to study the extrinsic characteristics of each depressive symptom. RESULTS:The correlation between these factors and the features were computed. The results indicated that there were 25 features correlated with either 4 factors or SDS score. The statistical results indicated that depressive students were more likely to fail exams, have poor meal habits, have increased night activities and decreased morning activities, and engage less in social activities (eg, avoiding meal times with friends). Correlation analysis showed that the somatic factor 2 (F4) was negatively correlated with the number of library visits (r=-.179, P<.001), and, compared with other factors, had the greatest impact on students' daily schedule, eating and social habits. The biggest influencing factor to poor academic performance was cognitive factor F1, and its score was found to be significantly positively correlated with fail rate (r=.185, P=.02). CONCLUSIONS:The results presented in this study indicate that campus data can reflect depression and its symptoms. By collecting a large amount of questionnaire data and combining machine learning algorithms, it is possible to realize an identification method of depression and depressive symptoms based on campus data.

Dataset Information

Raising Awareness About Prescription and Stimulant Abuse in College Students Through On-Campus Community Involvement Projects.

Publications

Raising Awareness About Prescription and Stimulant Abuse in College Students Through On-Campus Community Involvement Projects.

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