Nonmedical use of over-the-counter medications is significantly associated with nonmedical use of prescription drugs among university students

Le, Vi T.; Turner, Abigail Norris; McDaniel, Anne; Hale, Kenneth M.; Athas, Christina; Kwiek, Nicole C.

doi:10.1080/07448481.2017.1356312

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The potential for misuse of OTC medications that have not previously been deemed to have a diversion potential has been reported worldwide [40,[88][89]. Their abuse appears facilitated by their accessibility, low cost, decreased perception of potential for harm, and growing social acceptability [2,7,12,15,90].…”

Section: Over-the-counter Drugs Misusementioning

confidence: 99%

Misuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs to obtain illicit highs: how pharmacists can prevent abuse

Chiappini¹,

Guirguis²,

Corkery³

et al. 2020

The Pharmaceutical Journal

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There have been increasing reports of misuse of a range of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs for recreational purposes. The use of psychoactive pharmaceuticals and 'pharming' are new, widespread phenomena involving the non-medical use of prescription and OTC drugs, which are recreationally used to achieve psychoactive effects either on their own or in combination with other substances. This article provides an overview of the topic, focusing on a range of medicines (e.g. prescription medicines such as quetiapine, gabapentinoids, Z-drugs, bupropion, venlafaxine, and over-thecounter medicines such as loperamide, dextromethorphan, benzydamine, promethazine, chlorphenamine, diphenhydramine and hyoscine butylbromide) that have emerged as misused and diverted, or already described through the literature, as well as recorded by drug users' online websites reporting new trends and experimentations of drug abuse. This rapidly changing drug scenario represents a challenge for pharmacy, psychiatry, public health and drug control policies. Moreover, possibly resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, drug use-habits and availability have changed, causing a shift in behaviours relating to both prescription and OTC medicines. Healthcare professionals should be aware of potential prescription drugs diversion, recognise misuse cases, consider the possibility of polydrug misuse, and prevent it where possible. Pharmacists can play a key role in preventing and reducing drug abuse and should be involved in evidence-based actions to detect, understand and prevent drug diversion activities and the adverse effects of drug-misuse.

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Section: Over-the-counter Drugs Misusementioning

confidence: 99%

Misuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs to obtain illicit highs: how pharmacists can prevent abuse

Chiappini¹,

Guirguis²,

Corkery³

et al. 2020

The Pharmaceutical Journal

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“…mHealth approaches are transversal to a wide set of application domains such as cardiac [ 31 ], trauma [ 32 ] and pain assessment [ 33 ], obesity and diabetes [ 34 ], mental health [ 35 , 36 ], medication adherence [ 37 ], and chronic diseases [ 38 ] and target: (a) healthcare professionals and care givers (e.g., [ 39 ]), to support patient assessment and monitoring; (b) patients, from all ages [ 40 ], for self-management, and as providers of relevant information for their condition; and (c) for the training of students and professionals, in certain domains (e.g., [ 41 ]), and as a way to bring caregivers onboard, by having them adopt guidelines and practises [ 42 , 43 ].…”

Section: Mobile Health and Geriatric Patient Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geriatric Helper: An mHealth Application to Support Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment

Silva

Felgueiras

Oliveira

2018

Sensors

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The Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is a multidisciplinary diagnosis approach that considers several dimensions of fragility in older adults to develop an individualized plan to improve their overall health. Despite the evidence of its positive impact, CGA is still applied by a reduced number of professionals in geriatric care in many countries, mostly using a paper-based approach. In this context, we collaborate with clinicians to bring CGA to the attention of more healthcare professionals and to enable its easier application in clinical settings by proposing a mobile application, Geriatric Helper, to act as a pocket guide that is easy to update remotely with up-to-date information, and that acts as a tool for conducting CGA. This approach reduces the time spent on retrieving the scales documentation, the overhead of calculating the results, and works as a source of information for non-specialists. Geriatric Helper is a tool for the health professionals developed considering an iterative, User-Centred Design approach, with extensive contributions from a broad set of users including domain experts, resulting in a highly usable and accepted system. Geriatric Helper is currently being tested in Portuguese healthcare units allowing for any clinician to apply the otherwise experts-limited geriatric assessment.

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“…Findings of a 2014 Scottish survey reported however that the proportion of pharmacists considering a suspected OTC misuse increased to 80.8% from 70.8% in 2006; codeine-containing products were most frequently perceived to be misused, followed by diphenidramine and laxatives [ 9 ]. Conversely, Levine [ 2 ] and Finkelstein et al [ 10 ] suggested increased levels of non-medical use of OTC cough suppressants containing dextromethorphan, whilst stimulant and sleep aid molecules’ misuse has been suggested elsewhere [ 11 – 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is there such a thing as a 'lope' dope? Analysis of loperamide-related European Medicines Agency (EMA) pharmacovigilance database reports

Schifano

Chiappini

2018

PLoS ONE

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BackgroundAmong over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, loperamide has recently emerged for its potential of misuse and cardiotoxicity issues. Hence, we aimed here at assessing the loperamide-related cases being reported to the EMA's EudraVigilance (EV) database.MethodsAll spontaneous EV reports relating to loperamide misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal and cardiotoxicity issues were here retrieved, performing a descriptive analysis.FindingsDuring the years 2005–2017, EV collected a number of 1,983 (out of a total of 7,895; 25.11%) loperamide-related misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports, with a progressively increasing trend since 2014. Most cases were classified as drug use disorder (37.4%) or intentional overdose (25.4%). Loperamide was used on its own in 41.9% of cases; remaining, polydrug, cases included antidepressants; benzodiazepines; and other OTCs. Some 1,085 (1,085/7,895 = 13.7%) cardiovascular ADRs were reported, being conduction abnormalities and EKG alterations the most frequently identified.ConclusionsEV data may support the levels of concern relating to loperamide potential of abuse and associated cardiotoxicity issues.

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Nonmedical use of over-the-counter medications is significantly associated with nonmedical use of prescription drugs among university students

Abstract: Results suggest the importance of both measuring the prevalence of OTC misuse and incorporating its misuse into assessments of polydrug use in the university population.

Cited by 12 publications

References 21 publications

Misuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs to obtain illicit highs: how pharmacists can prevent abuse

Misuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs to obtain illicit highs: how pharmacists can prevent abuse

Geriatric Helper: An mHealth Application to Support Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment

Is there such a thing as a 'lope' dope? Analysis of loperamide-related European Medicines Agency (EMA) pharmacovigilance database reports

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