Comprehensive Scoring Analysis

CNN — At some middle and high schools in the United States, 1 in 4 teens report they’ve abused prescription stimulants …

“This is the first national study to look at the nonmedical use of prescription stimulants by students in middle and hi…

“In some schools there was little to no misuse of stimulants, while in other schools more than 25% of students had used…

“This study is a major wake-up call.

” Nonmedical uses of stimulants can include taking more than a normal dose to get high, or taking the medication with a…

Students also overuse medications or “use a pill that someone gave them due to a sense of stress around academics — the…

Deepa Camenga, associate director of pediatric programs at the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine in New Haven, Connect…

“We know this is happening in colleges.

A major takeaway of the new study is that misuse and sharing of stimulant prescription medications is happening in midd…

Wide range of abuse Published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, the study analyzed data collected between 2005 …

In the data set used for this study, questionnaires were given to more than 230,000 teens in eighth, 10th and 12th grad…

Schools with the highest rates of teens using prescribed ADHD medications were about 36% more likely to have students m…

Schools with few to no students currently using such treatments had much less of an issue, but it didn’t disappear, McC…

“We know that the two biggest sources are leftover medications, perhaps from family members such as siblings, and askin…

Schools in the suburbs in all regions of the United States except the Northeast had higher rates of teen misuse of ADHD…

Schools with more White students and those who had medium levels of student binge drinking were also more likely to see…

On an individual level, students who said they had used marijuana in the past 30 days were four times as likely to abus…

In addition, adolescents who said they used ADHD medications currently or in the past were about 2.

5% more likely to have misused the stimulants when compared with peers who had never used stimulants, the study found.

“But these findings were not being driven solely by teens with ADHD misusing their medications,” McCabe said.

“We still found a significant association, even when we excluded students who were never prescribed ADHD therapy.

” Data collection for the study was through 2020.

Since then, new statistics show prescriptions for stimulants surged 10% during 2021 across most age groups.

At the same time, there has been a nationwide shortage of Adderall, one of the most popular ADHD drugs, leaving many pa…

Dangers of misuse The stakes are high: Taking stimulant medications improperly over time can result in stimulant use di…

If overused or combined with alcohol or other drugs, there can be sudden health consequences.

Side effects can include “paranoia, dangerously high body temperatures, and an irregular heartbeat, especially if stimu…

Research has also shown people who misuse ADHD medications are highly likely to have multiple substance use disorders.

Abuse of stimulant drugs has grown over the past two decades, experts say, as more adolescents are diagnosed and prescr…

For children with ADHD who use their medications appropriately, stimulants can be effective treatment.

They are “protective for the health of a child,” Camenga said.

“Those adolescents diagnosed and treated correctly and monitored do very well — they have a lower risk of new mental he…

” What parents and caregivers can do The solution to the problem of stimulant misuse among middle and high school teens…

Parents should use a lockbox, count pills and stay on top of early prescription refills, experts say.

Tassii/E+/ “Instead, we need to look very long and hard at school strategies that are more or less effective in curbing…

“Parents can make sure the schools their kids attend have safe storage for medication and strict dispensing policies.

And ask about prevalence of misuse — that data is available for every school.

” Families can also help by talking to their children about how to handle peers who approach them wanting a pill or two…

“You’d be surprised how many kids do not know what to say,” McCabe said.

“Parents can role-play with their kids to give them options on what to say so they are ready when it happens.

” Parents and guardians should always store controlled medications in a lockbox, and should not be afraid to count pill…

“Finally, if parents suspect any type of misuse, they should contact their child’s prescriber right away,” McCabe said.

“That child should be screened and assessed immediately