CNN
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In some intermediate and secondary schools in the United States, 1 in 4 adolescents report who have abused the stimulants prescribed for the duration of attention deficit disorder the previous year, according to a new study.
“This is the first national study that observes the non -medical use of stimulating stimulants by students in the intermediate and secondary school, and we find a large and wide range of misuse,” said the main author are Esteban McCabe, director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“In some schools there was little or undue use of stimulants, while in other schools more than 25% of the students had used stimulants in a non -medical way,” said McCabe, who is also a nursing professor at the Norsing School at the University of Michigan. “This study is an important attention call.”
Non -medical uses of stimulants may include taking more than a normal dose to get high or take alcohol medication or other drugs to increase previous and previous studies.
Students also use excess medications or “use a pill that something is great due to a feeling of stress around academics: they are trying to stay awake late and study or be the documents of the mile,” said the pediatrician Dra. Deepa Camenga, associate director of pediatric programs in the Yale program in Medicine of Addictions in Addictions in Addictions in New Haven, Connecticut.
“We know that this is happening at the conferences. An important conclusion of the new study is that the improper use and the exchange of stimulating prescription drugs are occurring in the intermediate and secondary schools, not only the university,” said Camenga, who was not involved in the study.
Published Tuesday at the Jamal Jama Network Open, the study analyzed the data collected between 2005 and 2020 when monitoring the future, a federal survey that has measured the consumption of drugs and alcohol between secondary school every year since 1975.
In the data set used for this study, issues were given to more than 230000 adolescents in the eighth, tenth and twelfth grade in a sample of national representative or 3,284 secondary schools.
Schools with the highest rates of Teenagers using prescribed ADHD measurements The study discovered that the study discovered that the study discovered approximately 36% more likely to have students misuse of the stimulants prescribed last year. Schools with few or no students who currently used such treatments had much less problems, but did not disappear, McCabe said.
“We know that the two largest sources are leftover medications, perhaps of family members as brothers, and asking their teammates, who can attend other schools,” he said.
The schools in the suburbs in all regions of the United States, except the northeast, had high rates of improper use of adolescents of mediations with ADHD, as well as schools where one or more parents had a university degree for the study.
Schools with more white students and those who had medium levels or to drink in excess students were also more likely to see abuse or adolescent stimulants.
At the individual level, the students who said they had used marijuana in the last 30 days were four times more likely to abuse the drugs for ADHD than tan adolescents who did not use grass, according to the analysis.
In addition, teenagers who said they used medicines for ADHD currently or in the past had approximately 2.5% more likely to have used stimulants badly compared to comparison The colleagues who had never used stimulants, found the study.
“But these findings were not driven solely by tens with ADHD misuse of their measurements,” McCabe said. “We are still founding a significant association, when we are excluded students who were never prescribed with ADHD.”
The collection of data for the study was until 2020. Since then, the new statistics show that the prescriptions for stimulants increased 10% duration 2021 in most age groups. At the same time, there has been a national scarcity of Adderall, one of the most popular ADHD medications, leaving many patients Unable to fill or fill their recipes.
The bets are high: taking stimulating medicines incorrectly over time can be the result of stimulating use disorder, which can cause anxiety, depression, psychosis and seizures, experts say.
If it is exaggerated or combined with alcohol or other drugs, there may be health consequences. Side effects may include “paranoia, dangerously high body temperatures and an irregular beat, especially if stimulants are tasks in large doses or in different ways of swallowing a pill, service to substance abuse and mental health.
Research has also shown that people who do not mistreat ADHD medications are very likely to have multiple substance use disorders.
The abuse of stimulating drugs has grown in the last two decades, experts say, as more teenagers are diagnosed and these medications are prescribed, studies have 1 of every 9 high school students who report the stimulating therapy for ADHD, McCabe said.
For children with ADHD who use their medications properly, stimulants can be an effective treatment. They are “a child’s health protectors,” Camenga said. “The diagnosed and treated of those teenagers correctly and monitored do very well: they have a lower risk of new mental health problems or new substance use disorders.”
What parents and caregivers can do
The solution to the problem of stimulating misuse among adolescents of the intermediate and secondary school should not limit the use of mediations for children who really need them, McCabe emphasized.
“On the other hand, we must look very long and hard in school strategies that are more or less effective in curbing the misuse of stimulating medication,” he said. “Parents can ensure that schools to their children attend have safe storage for strict dispensing and ask about the prevalence of misuse: that the data is available for each school.”
Families can also help with their children on how to manage their classmates who approach them who want a pill or two for party or tonight, Hey added.
“It would surprise you how many children do not know what to say,” McCabe said. “Parents can play with their children to give them options about what they are ready when it happens.”
Parents and guardians You must always store controlled measurements in a safety box, and you should not be afraid to count the pills and be aware of early recharges, he added.
“Finally, if parents suspect any kind of improper use, they must communicate with their son’s prescriber immediately,” McCabe said. “That child must be examined and evaluated immediately.”