Motives, diversion and routes of administration associated with nonmedical use of prescription opioids

Abstract

Objectives: The main objectives of this study were to assess the motives, diversion sources and routes of administration associated with the nonmedical use of prescription opioids as well as to examine substance use related problems associated with the nonmedical use of prescription opioids.

Method: A self-administered, cross-sectional Web survey was conducted in 2005 at a large public Midwestern 4-year university in the U.S. using a probability-based sampling approach. The final sample included 4580 full-time undergraduate students.

Results: The three most common motives associated with the nonmedical use of prescription opioids were to relieve pain, get high, and experiment. The leading sources of prescription opioids were friends and parents although there were gender differences in reports of primary sources. More than 1 in every 10 nonmedical users reported intranasal administration. Multivariate analyses indicated nonmedical users of prescription opioids who used for motives other than to relieve pain, obtained these drugs from non-parental sources, or used these drugs via non-oral routes of administration were significantly more likely to experience substance use related problems.

Conclusions: These results indicate that nonmedical use of prescription opioids represents a considerable problem for particular subgroups of college students. While additional research is needed, the present study offers important new directions for policy and research regarding prescription opioid misuse.

Fig. 1

Mean DAST-10 scores as a function of motive of nonmedical use of prescription opioids. Error bars represent ± 1 S.E. ANOVA showed a main effect of motive, F(2, 4466)=585.8, p<0.001. Post-hoc Tukey HSD tests indicated the mean DAST-10 scores among non-users and nonmedical users to relieve pain only were significantly lower than mean DAST-10 scores of nonmedical users who reported motives other than to relieve pain (p<0.05).

Fig. 2

Mean DAST-10 scores as a function of source of nonmedical prescription opioids. Error bars represent ± 1 S.E. ANOVA showed a main effect for source, F(3, 4473)=314.8, p<0.001. Post-hoc tests indicated the mean DAST-10 scores among nonmedical users who obtained prescription opioids from peers only and other sources were significantly higher than non-users and nonmedical users who obtained prescription opioids from their parents only (p<0.05).

Fig. 3

Mean DAST-10 scores as a function of route of administration of nonmedical prescription opioids. Error bars represent ± 1 S.E. Intranasal+oral (n=70) excluded other non-oral routes. Other routes (n=30) included smoking, injecting, and/or inhaling but did not exclude oral or intranasal. ANOVA showed a main effect of route of administration, F(3, 4473)=355.8, p<0.001. Post-hoc tests indicated the mean DAST-10 score among individuals who reported intranasal and other routes of administration was significantly higher than mean DAST-10 scores of non-users and nonmedical users who reported oral only route of administration (p<0.05).