ATTITUDES TOWARD “SMART DRUGS” USE AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS:INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT

POSTER PRESENTATIONS

Objective. To review the literature about the attitudes toward the safety and fairness of the use of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancements or “smart drugs” among college students, and develop an instrument that will measure student's attitudes toward "smart drugs". Background. The use of “smart drugs” for non-medical reasons, and the misuse of prescription stimulant medications is a growing trend among high school and college students. However, there are many concerns about the appropriateness and fairness of their use among these students. Methods. A literature review of articles on attitudes toward “smart drugs” and cognitive enhancers among college students has been performed using the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases. The following terms were used to search for articles to be included in the review; “smart drugs”, “college students”, "cognitive enhancers”, “ADHD”, “attitudes”, “drug misuse”, and “drug abuse”. SPSS factor analysis was done to validate the developed instrument. Results. The frequency of stimulants misuse as cognitive enhancers by college students was estimated at 3% to 10% with the majority of students taking them to prepare for exams, however, recent studies found that the non-medical use of smart drugs in the United States grew up to 34%. Research of the available literature about the concerns regarding the use of smart drugs found the most common ones were: medical safety, coercion, and fairness. Four dimensions were more prevalent to measure the attitudes toward the use of “smart drugs” among college students including; perceptions about “smart drugs”, personal use, safety and fairness. A 24-item Likert scale was developed to measure these 4 dimensions. The results of SPSS factor analysis showed that the items were loading on 6 factors instead of 4, however, some of the items were loading on more than one factor, so we removed 4 items and did the factor analysis again, and we ended up with 4 factors as the original hypothesis. Conclusion. Students’ attitudes toward the fairness and safety of smart drugs were different based on many factors, including users vs. non-users, need or reason to use smart drugs, social pressure and the improvement in academic performance. Research is needed to develop a comprehensive instrument that will measure students' attitudes. Grants. NA