preventing teen abuse of prescriptions and over the
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Preventing Teen Abuse of Prescriptions and Over the Counter
Medications
Rayna Briceno and Yailka Cardenas
Health Education and Program Planning
Mission Statement: To educate the community about harmful trends involving teens and the misuse of prescription (Rx) and over the counter (OTC)medications
Goals: To give stakeholders basic knowledge of some of the risk factors involved in teens abusing Rx and OTC medications To significantly reduce the number of teens aged 13 to 19 who misuse and/or abuse Rx and OTC medications
Objectives:
• To better understand the trend for Rx and OTC medication abuse among teens
• To increase the communication parents have with teens aged 13 to 19 about this topic
• To increase the number of stakeholders involved in this issue
• To reduce the number of Rx and OTC medications left unattended in reach of teens
Background:
For teens, prescription and over the counter medications may have appeal for a number of reasons: Easily accessible Perceived as safe
when compared with street drugs
Legal, doctor-prescribed and FDA approved
According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, teens are abusing Rx and OTC drugs because of their belief in their safety and for reasons beyond getting high, such as:o Relief of paino Aid with sleepo Experimentationo Helps with concentrationo To increase alertness
Significance:
According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, millions of teens report abusing a variety of prescription and over the counter medications, such as painkillers, stimulants and cough suppressants
Teens abuse medications in a number of ways:• Swallow the pills or drink liquids, such as cough
syrup• Crush pills before snorting or smoking the powder • Melt or dissolve the medications and inject them• Mix prescription drugs with alcohol and street
drugs into cocktails
Statistics • Monitoring the Future survey
(on Prescription Drugs)– Prescription Drug abuse
increased from 2.8% of High School students to 7.8%
• National Survey on Drug Use and Health – In 2002, 4.7 used prescription
drugs non-medically– In 2003, 4.0% youth ages 12-
17yrs and 6.0% young adults ages 18-25 reported nonmedical use of prescription drugs.
Statistics Cont’d
• Nearly 1 in 5 teens reported abusing prescription medications that were not written out to them at least once
• 30% of adolescents reported having a friend abusing prescription stimulants
• In 2004, 9% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 used prescription drugs
Influences on Prescription Drug Use
• Peer group approval • Teens are under the impression their
prescription drug use is responsible• Teen perception that prescription drugs are
safer than illicit street drugs• Advertisements for prescription drugs has
increased significantly.– $1.8 billion (1999) to $4.2 billion (2004) on
prescription drug ads
Who’s supplying prescription drugs?
• Peers with illnesses• Parents’ medicine cabinets • Physicians – 43% do not ask patients about prescription drug
abuse– 1/3 do not refer to patient records for drug abuse
Professions concerned about this issue..
People involved:• Parents• Teachers• School Administrators• Coaches• Counselors• Pharmacists• Pediatricians• Adolescent Medicine
Providers• Emergency Room Providers• Club Owners
Organizations involved:• Office of National Drug
Control• National Institute on
Drug Abuse• The Partnership for a
Drug-Free America • CDC• DPH• American Association of
Position Control Center (AAPCC)
How to get parents involved ?
• Begin by educating yourself:– Educate yourself about medications that kids
are abusing and share this information with others who are in contact with your children- such as school administrators, coaches, counselors, etc
• Communicate with your children– Discuss the subject with your teens– See what your kids know about this issue– Explain to them this can be LETHAL and
shouldn’t be done without parents knowing
• Safe guard medications at home and other places– Ask your healthcare provider if any
meds being prescribed for your family have a potential for abuse
– Take an inventory of Rx and OTC meds in your home
What are we doing about it?
• National All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting (NASPER)– $60 million from 2006-2010 for federal grants to
establish and support prescription drug monitoring programs
• State and Local agencies are making public efforts to educate authorities, physicians, pharmacists, patients, and families about the effects of prescription drug abuse.
What are we doing about it? Cont’d
• Takeback Initiative program– The Drug Enforcement Administration and Law
Enforcement work together to establish programs that take back old and/or unused prescription drugs
WIVBTV: Prescription drop-off to fight abusehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUxbNDkFesY
Challenges
• Families and Communities taking the Lead• Physicians getting the training• Monitoring every prescription drug abuser.
Questions:
• What obstacles do you think parents will face when addressing this issue with their children?
• How do you think a discussion regarding this topic would be different between a physician and a community health worker versus a parent and his/her child?
ReferencesBright, George. 3008. Abuse of Medications, Employed for the treatment of ADHD: Results from a large-scale community survey.
The Medscale Journal of Medicine, 10 (5), 111-115. Friedman, Richard A. 2006. The Changing Faces of Teenage Drug Abuse – The Trend Toward Prescription Drugs. The New
England Journal of Medicine. 354 1448-1550 The Gazette. 2010. Rise in U.S. Prescription Drug Abuse: Study. Montrealgazette.com Goodnough, Abby. 2010. A Wave of Addiction and Crime, with the Medicine Cabinet to Blame. The New York Times
Kelly, B,C., and Parsons, J.T. 2007. Prescription Drug Misuse among Club Drug-Using Young Adults. Journal of Drug-Alcohol Abuse, 33 (6), 875-884.
Manchikanti, Laxmaiah, Md. 2006. Prescription Drug Abuse: What is Bing Done to Address This New Drug Epidemic? Testimony
Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug, and Human Resources. Pain Physician, 9 (4) 287-321 National Institute on Drug Abuse. Research Report Series – Prescription Drugs -Abuse & addictions.
http://www.nida.nih.gov/researchreports/prescription/prescription5.html Plank, Dawndy Mercer. 2010. Program Will Take Back Your Prescription Meds. file:///Users/teacher/Desktop/story.asp.html Setik, J., Bond, R., and Ho, M. 2009. Adolescent Prescription ADHD Medication Abuse is Rising Along with prescriptions for
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