Drug Use as Self-Medication: An Investigation of Anti-Anxiety “Misuse” Among Adult Women

• In Event: Gender, Family Processes and Risky Behaviors

Abstract

Research consistently finds that men use drugs more frequently and extensively than women. However, the use of anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals provides an exception. Controlling for several demographic and medical factors, we know that women are more likely to misuse tranquilizers than men. Since women are not commonly poly-substance users, a gender effect explaining the disproportionate tranquilizer “misuse” seems apparent, but research has failed to systematically explore this relationship. Relying on quantitative data compiled in the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), we find that women who report struggling with mental health illness in the past year are about two times more likely to report using anti-anxiety prescriptions outside of a physician’s order net of physical health, martial, employment, and parenthood status, race, and other illicit drug use. Qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with adult women aged 36-69, who report a history of misusing anti-anxiety prescriptions, indicate tensions between “real life” demands and idealized expectations of being a successful mother. Indeed, all of the women refer to themselves as being “non-typical” women. Women’s narratives also indicate marked similarities in respect to initial and continued “misuse;” however, the ways in which women explain and understand their “misuse” varied across respondents

Authors

• Cindy Brooks Dollar, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Joshua A. Hendrix, RTI International