Pathways to Prescription Drug Misuse among Adolesents

Prescription drug misuse (PDM) is a growing public health problem. According to a 2007 report released by the National Office of Drug Control Policy, the prevalence of PDM among youth was second only to marijuana. Overall, girls were more likely to report PDM than boys and pain relievers were the most common type of prescription drug misused. The main objectives for the current project were to determine the frequency of PDM as the first substance used and associations between PDM and other forms of substance use. Data for this project were obtained from the 2008 National Survey of Drug Use and Health and for participants aged 12-17 years. Categories of PDM included pain killers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives. Other substances included cigarettes, alcohol, inhalants, marijuana, and illicit drugs (cocaine, crack, and opiates). Overall, 12.1% of all adolescents who reported any substance use identified prescription drugs as the first substance of use (average age of first use = 13.3 years). Among all substances included in these analyses, the prevalence of PDM was behind alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana as the fourth most frequently cited substance of first use. In multivariate models, any other form of first substance use was associated with an increased probability of PDM across all categories of prescription drugs (adjusted odds ratios: 2.04-7.59 for any PDM). Results from this study suggest that prescription drugs are misused more than 12% of all adolescents who reported any substance use and statistically significant associations between PDM and other forms of substance abuse.