137th APHA Annual Meeting (November 7-11, 2009): Applying information on prescription drug changes to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health

Monday, November 9, 2009: 8:30 AM
Larry A. Kroutil, MPH , Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice Research Division, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC
James D. Colliver, PhD , Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, MD
Joseph Gfroerer, BA , Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, MD

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual survey of persons aged 12 or older in the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States, misuse of prescription drugs, and particularly pain relievers, ranks second only to marijuana in terms of use or misuse of drugs other than alcohol and tobacco in the United States. However, the specific prescription medications being misused largely depend on which drugs are available on the market. Moreover, national surveys such as NSDUH seek to measure trends in substance use; the need to measure trends reliably discourages addition or deletion of specific prescription drugs in survey questions. Nevertheless, epidemiologic surveys such as NSDUH periodically need to evaluate the relevant prescription drugs to be included in survey questions. NSDUH also allows respondents to type in the names of prescription drugs they misused in addition to those they were directly asked about ("other, specify" data). This presentation will report on the current legal status or availability of specific prescription drugs included in NSDUH, trends in the reporting of misuse of specific prescription drugs in NSDUH, including misuse by persons who first used in the 12 months before their interview, and results of analyses of "other, specify" data since the new NSDUH baseline in 2002 to identify increasingly misused prescription drugs. The presentation also will use these findings to summarize which prescription drugs could be candidates to be added to or removed from a future redesigned questionnaire.

Learning Objectives:
1. Assess the importance of misuse of prescription drugs in the United States as a public health issue, based on NSDUH and other relevant data. 2. Assess the challenges that changes in the availability of prescription psychotherapeutic drugs present for reliable measurement of trends in prescription drug misuse. 3. Differentiate between pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives that are legally available by prescription in the United States and those that are not. 4. Identify at least one prescription drug in each psychotherapeutic category (i.e., prescription pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives) that appears to be important for measuring misuse of prescription drugs in the United States.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have a Master of Public Health degree in health education and have served as an analyst on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH; formerly the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse) since 1994, including co-authorship on the following Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) report: Colliver, J.D., Kroutil, L.A., Dai, L., & Gfroerer, J.C. (2006). Misuse of prescription drugs: Data from the 2002, 2003, and 2004 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (DHHS Publication No. SMA 06-4192, Analytic Series A-28). Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies. Peer-reviewed publications relevant to the content of the presentation include Kroutil, L.A., Vorburger, M.S., Aldworth, J., & Colliver, J.. (in press). Estimated Drug Use Based on Direct Questioning and Open-Ended Question Responses in the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. Kroutil, L.A., Van Brunt, D.L., Stahl, M.H., Heller, D.C., Bray, R.M., & Penne, M.A. (2006). Nonmedical Use of Prescription Stimulants in the United States. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 84, 135-143. Novak, S., Kroutil, L.A., Williams, R.L., & Van Brunt, D.L.. (2007). The nonmedical use of prescription ADHD medications: results from a national Internet panel. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, 2(1), 1-32. Stahl, M.H., Krebs, C.P., Kroutil, L.A., & Heller, D.C. (2007). Risk and Protective Factors for Methamphetamine Use and Nonnmedical Use of Prescription Stimulants among Young Adults Aged 18 to 25. Addictive Behaviors, 32(5), 1003-1015. Stahl, M.H., Krebs, C.P., Kroutil, L.A., & Heller, D.C. (2006). Risk and Protective Factors for Non-Medical Use of Prescription Stimulants and Methamphetamine among Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39, 374-380. In addition, I was co-author on the following book chapter related to substance abuse: Wheeless, S.C., Bray, R.M., & Kroutil, L.A. (1999). Comparing and Integrating Findings Across Populations. In R.M. Bray and M.E. Marsden (Ed.), Drug Use in Metropolitan America (pp. 267-295). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication, Inc.. Finally, I was the principal author on the following Office of Applied Studies Short Reports from the NSDUH on alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use: Underage Alcohol Use: Where Do Young People Get Alcohol?. Prepared for Office of Applied Studies (OAS), SAMHSA, November 2008. Underage Alcohol Use: Where Do Young People Drink?. Prepared for Office of Applied Studies, August 2008. Use of Specific Hallucinogens: 2006. Prepared for Office of Applied Studies, February 2008. Misuse of Over-the-Counter Cough and Cold Medications among Persons Aged 12 to 25. Prepared for Office of Applied Studies, January 2008.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

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137th APHA Annual Meeting (November 7-11, 2009): Applying information on prescription drug changes to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health