Study Objectives-This study examines nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NPS) among 1,253 first-year college students. Comparisons are made between non-users, nonmedical users, and medical users of prescription stimulants for ADHD (ADHD+), some of whom overused their medication.Design-Cross-sectional study. Setting-Large public university in the mid-Atlantic region.Subjects-Twelve hundred fifty three college students. Measurements and MainResults-Of 1,208 students who were not using prescription stimulants medically for ADHD (ADHD-), 18.0% (n = 218) engaged in NPS. Among 45 ADHD+ students, 26.7% (n = 12) overused their ADHD medication at least once in their lifetime, and 15.6% (n = 7) nonmedically used someone else's prescription stimulants at least once in their lifetime. Among nonmedical users, NPS was infrequent and mainly associated with studying, although 15.6% used prescription stimulants to party or to get high. Lifetime NPS was associated with past-year other drug use. Both NPS and overuse of prescribed stimulants for ADHD were independently associated with past-year use of five drugs, holding constant sociodemographic characteristics. NPS was also associated with alcohol and marijuana dependence.Conclusions-Physicians should be vigilant for possible overuse and/or diversion of prescription stimulants among ADHD+ patients attending college, as well as the co-occurrence of illicit drug use with NPS. Initiation of comprehensive drug prevention activities that involve parents as well as colleges is encouraged to raise awareness of NPS and its association with illicit drug use. KeywordsCollege students; nonmedical use of prescription stimulants; ADHD; polydrug use; drug dependence Several medications are used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including different formulations of methylphenidate (e.g., Concerta ® (methylphenidate extended release; ALZA Corporation, Mountain View, CA)), Ritalin ® Address reprint requests to Amelia M. Arria, PhD, Deputy Director of Research, Center for Substance Abuse Research, 4321 Hartwick Rd, Suite 501, College Park, MD, 20740, tel: 301-405-9795, fax: 301-403-8342, email address: aarria@cesar.umd.edu. Poster presented at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, Scottsdale, AZ, June [17][18][19][20][21][22] 2006 NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPharmacotherapy. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 July 21. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript (methylphenidate; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, East Hanover, NJ)) and mixtures of amphetamine salts (e.g., Adderall ® (amphetamine-dextroamphetamine; Shire, Wayne, PA)).1 These medications are very effective in reducing symptoms of ADHD.2 -8 During the past several years, much attention has focused on the nonmedical use of these medications, as well as other forms of prescription drugs. The general definition of nonmedical use of prescription stimulants (NPS) developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administratio...

Underage drinking and drug use among college students are major public health concerns, yet few studies have examined these behaviors and their associated risk factors and consequences prospectively. This paper describes the sampling and recruitment methods of a longitudinal study of 1,253 college students at a large, mid-Atlantic university. Incoming first-year students were screened during the unique window between high school and college in order to oversample drug users for longitudinal follow-up. Intensive recruitment strategies yielded a 95% cumulative response rate in annual interviews and semi-annual surveys. We report preliminary results on exposure opportunity, lifetime prevalence, initiation, continuation, and cessation of substance use for alcohol, tobacco, and ten illicit and prescription drugs during the first two years of college. Findings suggest that while some substance use represents a continuation of patterns initiated in high school, exposure opportunity and initiation of substance use frequently occur in college. Implications for prevention and early intervention are discussed. Keywords NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript IntroductionUnderage drinking and illicit substance use among college students are major public health concerns. Annually, at least 1,400 deaths are attributable to alcohol use on college campuses (1). High-risk drinking among young adults is associated with sexual assault, destruction of property, academic problems, accidental injury, and several adverse health consequences (2-5). Binge drinking and illicit drug use often co-occur (2,6-10), but in contrast to longitudinal studies of alcohol consumption (11), surprisingly few longitudinal prospective studies have examined patterns, correlates, and consequences of illicit drug use among college students. Little information is available on the patterns of initiation and cessation during college-that is, it is not known how often drug use is initiated after coming to college versus continuing a pattern that began in high school, and how often a pattern of regular drug use resolves among college students. Moreover, a majority of the conceptual models used to explain the onset and course of early drug use were developed from studying samples of adolescents, many of whom were deviant and disadvantaged (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). Although the application of these models to samples of educated, academically-achieving youths might be appropriate, other risk factors and consequences might be needed to fully describe the natural history and course of drug use and other health risk behaviors during this unique developmental window. For example, an important potential outcome of drug use among college students might be diminished expectations regarding career goals or difficulty establishing autonomy.This paper describes results from the College Life Study (CLS), funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in October 2003 to address critical gaps in our knowledge base concerning the longi...

The offering and acceptance of expanded carrier screening is increasing among pregnant women including women without an increased risk based on race, ethnicity or family history. The chances of a positive screening test have been reported to be as high as 24 % when multiple conditions are screened. Yet, little is known about the way these tests are offered and how patients are affected by a positive test result. To explore this area of genetic testing, interviews (n = 17) were conducted among women who received positive expanded carrier results in the context of obstetric care. A content analysis was conducted on the transcript data from the interviews. Outcomes of this research suggest that educational interventions are needed to improve maternal understanding of positive carrier screening results. Most of the participants in this study confused the results with other prenatal screening test options. In addition, the way the results were discussed varied greatly, and influenced participants’ thoughts about reproductive decisions that led to a range of emotional uncertainty. Our data suggests that genetic counseling improved participants’ understanding of positive results. More research is needed to further understand if our results are consistent within a larger, more diverse sample, and to explore how to best provide education about expanded carrier screening.

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Purpose Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and reading disability (RD) have poor phonological awareness, a problem believed to arise largely from deficits in processing the sensory information in speech, specifically individual acoustic cues. However, such cues are details of acoustic structure. Recent theories suggest that listeners also need to be able to integrate those details to perceive linguistically relevant form. This study examined abilities of children with SSD, RD, and SSD+RD not only to process acoustic cues but also to recover linguistically relevant form from the speech signal. Method Ten- to 11-year-olds with SSD (n = 17), RD (n = 16), SSD+RD (n = 17), and Controls (n = 16) were tested to examine their sensitivity to (1) voice onset times (VOT); (2) spectral structure in fricative-vowel syllables; and (3) vocoded sentences. Results Children in all groups performed similarly with VOT stimuli, but children with disorders showed delays on other tasks, although the specifics of their performance varied. Conclusion Children with poor phonemic awareness not only lack sensitivity to acoustic details, but are also less able to recover linguistically relevant forms. This is contrary to one of the main current theories of the relation between spoken and written language development.