Sunday, November 22, 2009

Education

College Students Illegally Use ADHD Drugs, Study Says

December 15, 2008 02:31 PM ET | Alison Go | Permanent Link | Print

In a Duke study of undergraduates, 5 percent of respondents said they had used an ADHD medication like Ritalin, Adderall, or Concerta without a prescription in the past six months; 90 percent of those respondents said they used the drug to help them study, as opposed to nonacademic uses like "to get high."

Seventy percent of those who used the drug to study found it effective, despite nearly a quarter experiencing side effects like loss of appetite or difficulty sleeping. Inside Higher Ed adds, "Those who use ADHD drugs without prescriptions are more likely than students as a whole to be white, belong to a fraternity or sorority, have lower grade-point averages, and engage in illegal substance use and other risky behaviors."

Results of the web-based survey of 3,407 students from University of North Carolina-Greensboro and Duke were published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.

Tags: ADD/ ADHD | colleges | prescription drugs | students | University of North Carolina | Duke University

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Reader Comments

ADHD drug abuse

After the ADHD drugs stop being effective the next thing they know they are strung out on Methamphetamine.

http://www.soberliving.com/

They do NOT need them

college students do not need drugs 2 be happy in school they need learning and friends!!!! if they do not need them they should not use them

5% seems low

I recently finished my undergraduate work, and from my anecdotal experience, closer to 25% of students were using Adderall illegally. If I recall correctly, the paper at the school where I did my undergrad(a top tier engineering institute) published the results of an informal poll, with results much higher then 5%. I'm surprised its taken the main stream media so long to catch on to this.

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