EPA-1157 – The influence of medical student gender and drug use on the detection of addiction in patients

Abstract

Introduction:Little is known about medical students’ interest in their training on drug addiction, their personal experience of consumption and whether these aspects influence the detection of addiction in patients.Objectives:To study the interest of medical students enrolled on the psychiatry course in the area of addictions, and evaluate the influence of such interest, a history of personal consumption and gender on the detection of addiction in patients.Aims&Methods:Voluntary participation was offered to all students from academic years 2008–2009 to 2012–2013. Of the 505 potential students, 336 questionnaires were collected, of which 71.13% were female.Results:Of the respondents, 88.5% considered that drug dependence issues are important to their professional future and 63% that the approach to drug-related diseases is important. A total of 34% of the students had already assessed addicted patients in their previous clinical training. The students report consuming alcohol(69%), cigarettes(19.5%) and illegal drugs(15.8%). The female students consumed fewer illegal drugs than the men(p0.022) and more frequently considered that the list of topics to be covered was appropriate(p0.021). The male students consumed more illegal drugs more frequently(p 0.005), knew more consumers(p 0.023), and those who drink alcohol consumed more illegal drugs than women(p < 0.005). However, the men seemed to have assessed fewer addicted patients in their previous clinical experience(p0.094).Conclusions:Consumption among medical students may have a normalizing role on consumption and prevent the detection of addicts. It is important to educate and raise awareness on drugs, as this may influence detection. The focus should be particularly on the male group.

Untitled

“…Esta cifra es muy superior a la observada en datos de población general española, en la que los datos para la franja de edad de 15 a 24 años, obtenidos mediante el cuestionario AUDIT, con punto de corte "estándar" (8 para ambos sexos), reflejan un CRA del 7,2% (Ministerio de Sanidad, 2017). La revisión realizada por Roncero et al (2015) apunta a una prevalencia mundial de CRA en estudiantes de medicina del 24%, de acuerdo a las puntuaciones obtenidas en el cuestionario CAGE (punto de corte 2 para ambos sexos) y/o en el AUDIT (punto de corte "estándar") y/o al consumo semanal referido de al menos 21 o 14 unidades de bebida estándar en varones o mujeres, respectivamente.…”

“…Los varones de esta muestra presentaron una puntuación mayor que las mujeres para las tres preguntas del cuestionario, lo que significa que beben con mayor frecuencia, mayor cantidad y mayor intensidad que los estudiantes de medicina de sexo femenino. Esto va en consonancia con los datos disponibles en población general española (Ministerio de Sanidad, 2017), y en estudiantes de medicina (Lamberti et al, 2017;Roncero et al, 2015) y universitarios de otras nacionalidades (Kolšek & Klemenc Ketiš, 2015).…”

“…Sin embargo, en Europa se estima que aproximadamente el 24% de los estudiantes de medicina son consumidores de riesgo de alcohol y que este consumo alcanza niveles perjudiciales para casi la mitad de ellos (Roncero et al, 2015).…”

“…Se observa una gran variabilidad metodológica en los estudios sobre CRA en estudiantes de medicina. Muchos de estos estudios aportan datos obtenidos mediante cuestionarios internacionalmente aceptados y validados, pero que en la práctica se aplican modificados (Roncero et al, 2015). Esto dificulta la comparación de resultados, por lo que se necesitan más estudios que aborden esta cuestión, con la finalidad de poder homogeneizar los resultados (Roncero et al, 2015).…”

Lifestyle of medical students

“…Phillips et al proposed intensive education of medical students about the importance of healthy eating habits and lifestyle medicine, which aims to prevent, treat, or modify noncommunicable chronic diseases by helping people to make sustainable lifestyle changes (30). Many studies have investigated the prevalence of regular illicit drug use among students (31)(32)(33). One in particular, a systematic review of the literature carried out by Roncero et al, found that students in the later years of medical school have a higher rate of substance abuse than younger students in the earlier years (33).…”