Characterizing prescription stimulant nonmedical use (NMU) among adults recruited from Reddit

Vosburg, Suzanne K.; Robbins, Rebekkah S.; Antshel, Kevin M.; Faraone, Stephen V.; Green, Jody L.

doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100376

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…Most IN users reported performance enhancement as their primary reason for NMU (Compton et al, 2018;Faraone et al, 2020;Wilens et al, 2008), however, a sizeable proportion of IN users reported IN use to get high or to "party longer." An interaction between route of administration and motivation for use has been recently reported in other literature and bears further examination to better characterize this relationship (Vosburg, Robbins et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Diversion is a public health concern because it is invisible (Garcia et al, 2022; Lam et al, 2020; Lasopa et al, 2015), and yet must be balanced with the recognized need and medical benefit of prescription stimulants. Most IN users reported performance enhancement as their primary reason for NMU (Compton et al, 2018; Faraone et al, 2020; Wilens et al, 2008), however, a sizeable proportion of IN users reported IN use to get high or to “party longer.” An interaction between route of administration and motivation for use has been recently reported in other literature and bears further examination to better characterize this relationship (Vosburg, Robbins et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

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Intranasal Use of Prescription Stimulants Among Adults Aged 18 to 30: Results From A Crowdsourcing Platform

et al. 2022

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Objective: Few studies of prescription stimulant non-oral, non-medical use (NMU) (defined by use not as prescribed) have been conducted in adults beyond the college population. The purpose of this study was to characterize prescription stimulant non-oral use, specifically intranasal (IN) use (snorting) in young adults. Method: Amazon’s MTurk platform was used to recruit participants for an online survey. Data were collected from March to April 2020. Results: Thirty-two percent ( n = 157) of survey respondents ( N = 975), aged 18 to 30, reported IN prescription stimulant use (average of 32.1 episodes of lifetime IN use). Adderall was the most-reported prescription stimulant used intranasally (89.2%). Most IN users (82%; n = 68) reported spending no more than 5 minutes tampering with prescription stimulants. Intranasal users said they would take the medication orally if unable to tamper or manipulate medication for IN use. Conclusion: These data help quantify a complex public health issue of ongoing IN use of prescription stimulants and suggest a potential role for manipulation-deterrent medications.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Intranasal Use of Prescription Stimulants Among Adults Aged 18 to 30: Results From A Crowdsourcing Platform

et al. 2022

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“…Excluding this vast source of knowledge can be seen as a missed opportunity to identify potential prevention strategies. Our study is justified based on these factors, and we followed the accepted best practices used in many similar papers from the research community [ 15 , 49 – 56 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signals of increasing co-use of stimulants and opioids from online drug forum data

Sarker

Al-Garadi

et al. 2022

Harm Reduct J

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Background Despite recent rises in fatal overdoses involving multiple substances, there is a paucity of knowledge about stimulant co-use patterns among people who use opioids (PWUO) or people being treated with medications for opioid use disorder (PTMOUD). A better understanding of the timing and patterns in stimulant co-use among PWUO based on mentions of these substances on social media can help inform prevention programs, policy, and future research directions. This study examines stimulant co-mention trends among PWUO/PTMOUD on social media over multiple years. Methods We collected publicly available data from 14 forums on Reddit (subreddits) that focused on prescription and illicit opioids, and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Collected data ranged from 2011 to 2020, and we also collected timelines comprising past posts from a sample of Reddit users (Redditors) on these forums. We applied natural language processing to generate lexical variants of all included prescription and illicit opioids and stimulants and detect mentions of them on the chosen subreddits. Finally, we analyzed and described trends and patterns in co-mentions. Results Posts collected for 13,812 Redditors showed that 12,306 (89.1%) mentioned at least 1 opioid, opioid-related medication, or stimulant. Analyses revealed that the number and proportion of Redditors mentioning both opioids and/or opioid-related medications and stimulants steadily increased over time. Relative rates of co-mentions by the same Redditor of heroin and methamphetamine, the substances most commonly co-mentioned, decreased in recent years, while co-mentions of both fentanyl and MOUD with methamphetamine increased. Conclusion Our analyses reflect increasing mentions of stimulants, particularly methamphetamine, among PWUO/PTMOUD, which closely resembles the growth in overdose deaths involving both opioids and stimulants. These findings are consistent with recent reports suggesting increasing stimulant use among people receiving treatment for opioid use disorder. These data offer insights on emerging trends in the overdose epidemic and underscore the importance of scaling efforts to address co-occurring opioid and stimulant use including harm reduction and comprehensive healthcare access spanning mental-health services and substance use disorder treatment.

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“…Anonymous data [18,19,[21][22][23][26][27][28][29][30][31]33,34,38,45,55,57,60,61,65,[72][73][74][75] 24 (40) Reddit is one of the most popular social networking sites.…”

Section: Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Open and free platform [19][20][21][22][23]25,28,30,44,46,48,55,57,59,60,63,66,70,71,73] 20 (33) Discussions are organized into topics of interest (ie, subreddits), allowing researchers to identify people and topics of interest.…”

Section: Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Substance Use via Reddit: Systematic Scoping Review

Chi,

Chen

2023

J Med Internet Res

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Background Reddit’s (Reddit Inc) large user base, diverse communities, and anonymity make it a useful platform for substance use research. Despite a growing body of literature on substance use on Reddit, challenges and limitations must be carefully considered. However, no systematic scoping review has been conducted on the use of Reddit as a data source for substance use research. Objective This review aims to investigate the use of Reddit for studying substance use by examining previous studies’ objectives, reasons, limitations, and methods for using Reddit. In addition, we discuss the implications and contributions of previous studies and identify gaps in the literature that require further attention. Methods A total of 7 databases were searched using keyword combinations including Reddit and substance-related keywords in April 2022. The initial search resulted in 456 articles, and 227 articles remained after removing duplicates. All included studies were peer reviewed, empirical, available in full text, and pertinent to Reddit and substance use, and they were all written in English. After screening, 60 articles met the eligibility criteria for the review, with 57 articles identified from the initial database search and 3 from the ancestry search. A codebook was developed, and qualitative content analysis was performed to extract relevant evidence related to the research questions. Results The use of Reddit for studying substance use has grown steadily since 2015, with a sharp increase in 2021. The primary objective was to identify tendencies and patterns in various types of substance use discussions (52/60, 87%). Reddit was also used to explore unique user experiences, propose methodologies, investigate user interactions, and develop interventions. A total of 9 reasons for using Reddit to study substance use were identified, such as the platform’s anonymity, its widespread popularity, and the explicit topics of subreddits. However, 7 limitations were noted, including the platform’s low representativeness of the general population with substance use and the lack of demographic information. Most studies use application programming interfaces for data collection and quantitative approaches for analysis, with few using qualitative approaches. Machine learning algorithms are commonly used for natural language processing tasks. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications and contributions of the included articles are summarized and discussed. The most prevalent practical implications are investigating prevailing topics in Reddit discussions, providing recommendations for clinical practices and policies, and comparing Reddit discussions on substance use across various sources. Conclusions This systematic scoping review provides an overview of Reddit’s use as a data source for substance use research. Although the limitations of Reddit data must be considered, analyzing them can be useful for understanding patterns and user experiences related to substance use. Our review also highlights gaps in the literature and suggests avenues for future research.

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Characterizing prescription stimulant nonmedical use (NMU) among adults recruited from Reddit

Cited by 9 publications

References 83 publications

Intranasal Use of Prescription Stimulants Among Adults Aged 18 to 30: Results From A Crowdsourcing Platform

Intranasal Use of Prescription Stimulants Among Adults Aged 18 to 30: Results From A Crowdsourcing Platform

Signals of increasing co-use of stimulants and opioids from online drug forum data

Investigating Substance Use via Reddit: Systematic Scoping Review

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