College students are under a lot of stress; a big part of college life is trying to figure out how to manage it. Existing literature shows associations between greater perceived stress and increased occurrence of multiple forms of substance use. Many studies have been done on this topic before but have limitations due to the studies being retrospective. This study aims to “investigate the real-time variations in individuals’ moment-to-moment stress experiences directly predict their prescription misuse to establish and better understand these associations as they occur in everyday life.” They did this by incorporating a more temporally precise assessment of stress.
Participants were either college freshmen or sophomores and ages 18-21. An online questionnaire asked participants if they had used medications in any way not intended by a doctor in the past three months. The questionnaire presented four prescription medication classes: pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives or barbiturates, and provided examples of each. The participants responded to each question with either 1 for yes or 0 for no. A total of 355 participants were enrolled, and 300 (84.5%) reported prescription miuse. 73.3% reported recent misuse of one medication class, and 77.3% reported misuse of prescription stimulants.
The study showed that college students that evaluated as having higher stress than typical for them were more likely to engage in prescription drug misuse. In this study, a real-life time reporting approach was utilized to obtain participants’ ratings of stress intensity before prescription drug misuse. This was done to avoid the retrospective limitation of previous studies. The results highlighted the role that momentary stress experiences have on health-relevant substance behaviors. These results can help with prevention and intervention efforts by showing support to promote healthy responses to stress on college campuses.
Takeaway: College students that evaluated as higher stress than typical for them are more likely to engage in prescription drug misuse. Momentary stress experiences have a big impact on health-relevant substance behaviors.