Nonmedical use of opioid analgesics among Ontario students

The Study

The study is looking into the prevalence and predictors of non-medical use of analgesics among school-aged children in Ontario. It makes use of data from the 2007 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey.

The study included 2914 students aged 12 to 19, with 20.6% admitting to using non-prescribed opioids recreationally. Ladies (16.6%) used more than men (12%). 72% of respondents stated that they obtained the drugs from their house, whereas 6% obtained them from the fork sector (Brands, Paglia-Boak, Sproule, Leslie, & Adlaf, 2010).

The majority of the students abusing the prescription drugs had a history of substance and drug abuse.

Influence of the Problem on my Practice

The focus of the study offers an awakening experience on sociomedical realities, where the exploration challenges the traditional perspective of health. The article goes beyond the views of wellbeing as diseases and infirmities by discussing how drug abuse and lack of awareness has contributed to misuse of opioids. The centrality will shape my focus into emerging issues such as homelessness, immigration, and substance abuse.

Overlooking the issues has resulted in multifaceted challenges and an enormous socioeconomic burden, which will inform my decision as an advanced practitioner to research on interventions and advocate for the adoption of broad perspectives of caregiving. The article has also offered invaluable lessons on the importance of inter-professional collaborations in public health.

While the discussion explores the predictors of abuse of prescriptions drugs, the recommendations and conclusion call for wider responses, which should be informed by anthropological, psychological, and well as sociological postulations (Berkman, 2000).

References

Berkman, L. F. (2000). Social support, social networks, social cohesion, and health. Social work in health care, 31(2), 3-14.

Brands, B., Paglia-Boak, A., Sproule, B. A., Leslie, K., & Adlaf, E. M. (2010). Nonmedical use of opioid analgesics among Ontario students. Canadian Family Physician, 56(3), 256-262.