Prescription Drug Misuse among Young Adults: The Role of Peer Relationships

• In Event: 068 - Regular Session. Changing Nature and Impact of Substance Use among Youth and Young Adults

Abstract

Nonmedical use of prescription medication has seen an increase among youth and gathered much attention to issues of harmful consequences and escalation into dependence. Scholarly literature has generally stressed the role of peers and their use as being strong predictors of personal use, but the process of information diffusion, influence, or pressure has remained fairly elusive. The current paper investigates the effect of peer drug association, namely the rewards and punishments the peer context offers as a response to the individual’s use or refusal of use of prescription medication, as well as assessing the role of social pressure on prescription misuse as opposed to the individual motivation of wanting to enhance pleasant time with others. We use Project Rx data, 404 quantitative interviews collected in New York, to analyze frequency of misuse, probability of non-orally administration, and probability of meeting dependence criteria. Results show a persistent influence of peer drug association, which is positively associated with all three outcomes, while peer pressure had no significant bearing in neither of the outcomes. The misuse in order to spend a pleasant time with others showed an increase in frequency and probability of alternative administration and dependence. The study finds evidence for the importance of peer influence and situational social context, and suggests that future research distances from the concept of peer pressure as leading to durable, heightened substance use, and focus more on the mechanism behind the phenomenon, namely the motivation to practice and escalate prescription drugs (especially in social contexts).

Authors

• Alexandra Marin, Purdue University

• Brian C Kelly, Purdue University

• Michael Vuolo, Purdue University

• Brooke E Wells, Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training

• Jeffrey Parsons, City University of New York-Hunter College