*WINNER* Prescription Pain Reliever Misuse: An Explanatory Study of the Social Factors

Abstract

This won best undergraduate poster for Sociology and Political Science.

The opioid epidemic as a social problem has increasingly received more attention from the mass media as well as the scientific community. Despite all this attention substance use disorders involving prescription pain relievers affect roughly 1.9 million Americans annually (American Society of Addiction Medicine 2016). The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of mental health and risky behaviors such as alcohol use on propensity for non-medical prescription pain reliever use. The data for this study came from the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health A multivariate logistic regression analysis was run on a number of variables pulled from the survey. The study showed that certain mental conditions and risky behaviors increase one’s propensity for non-medical prescription pain reliever use. The findings of the study suggest (1) future research is necessary to understand further the correlations among mental health, risky behavior, and non-medical prescription pain reliever use; (2) that greater attention by all stakeholders (i.e. the individual, loved ones, healthcare providers, and mental health professionals)  to one’s mental health history could potentially be a significant factor in affecting the aforementioned epidemic; and (3) that greater attention to individual willingness to participate in what is considered risky behavior such as frequent alcohol consumption could potentially impact the aforementioned epidemic significantly.