A new study investigated prescription stimulant misuse among American Indian (AI) youth. Participants were a school-based sample of AI individuals in grades 7th – 12th who lived on or near reservations between 2009 and 2012 (N = 3,498). This sample was not randomly selected, nor was it nationally representative. Participants completed a modified version of The American Drug and Alcohol survey, which included self-report measures on prescribed stimulant use, frequency of stimulant misuse to get high, school performance, perception of peer substance use, and parental monitoring. Results showed 7% of the sample had been prescribed stimulants in the past and 32% of this group reported using stimulants to get high. Among students who were not prescribed stimulants, only 4% misused stimulants to get high. The authors used a multilevel analytic approach to interpret survey data. They found positive bivariate relationships between both peer modeling and having ever been prescribed stimulants and both lifetime stimulant misuse and frequency of past-month stimulant misuse. Logistic multilevel analysis found students from the Upper Great Lakes region had three times greater log odds of ever using stimulants to get high, compared to students in the Southwest (p = 0.001). The log odds of stimulant misuse were nearly nine times greater among students who were prescribed stimulants than their peers who were not (p < 0.001). Perception of peer substance use was positively related to log odds of lifetime stimulant use (p < 0.001) and parental monitoring was negatively related (p = 0.020). Perception of peer substance use and being prescribed stimulants in the past were both associated with increased frequency of past-month misuse (p < 0.001 and p = 0.011, respectively).

Take away: Among this school-based sample of American Indian (AI) youth, lifetime and past-month odds of prescription stimulant misuse were much higher than among youth who were not prescribed stimulants. AI youth in the Upper Great Lakes region had three times greater log odds of misusing stimulants to get high than their peers in the Southwest.

Citation: Spillane NS, Weyandt, L, Oster D, et al. (2017). Social contextual risk factors for stimulant use among adolescent American Indians [published online ahead of print 25 July 2017], Drug and Alcohol Dependence doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.06.032