Wellness Resource Center plans to give more attention to prescription drugs

It's December and college students around the country have final exams.  For several grueling days students spend countless hours in libraries and dorm rooms brooding over notes and books, trying to cram every significant detail they can to memory.

Ryan, Austin, Texas, junior, needs to focus.

He takes some Adderall, a prescription drug used primarily for people diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  Getting the drug from friends with prescriptions, Ryan is able to achieve what he calls complete mental focus.  Gaining energy and ignoring distractions, Ryan studies for his final.  Almost all his friends take the drug before tests and he is not worried about becoming addicted.

"I just take it for tests," Ryan said.  "I don't take it on a daily basis where I become bad."   

KU students have shown an increase in the use of prescription drugs, and the Wellness Resource Center at the University of Kansas plans to devote more time and effort next semester toward the topic.

Jenny McKee, a health educator and the grant coordinator for the center, said when it comes to drug use, the staff's main focus is alcohol and marijuana, but the staff members have seen such a strong trend in the increase of prescription drug use among students that the center needs to give the topic more attention.

Funded by student fees and housed within Watkins Memorial Health Center as part of its Student Health Services, the Resource Center will use the National College Health Assessment to help refocus the center's messaging, McKee said.

The National College Health Assessment is a data set collected every three years by universities around the country.  The assessment uses student surveys to provide statistics about drug and alcohol use.  McKee said the assessment, which next occurs in 2009, would be vital in comparing prescription drug use at the University with that at other colleges around the nation.

"It's very difficult to stay ahead of the learning curve," McKee said.  "We have excellent providers here and we will try to help students discontinue that drug use."

Ken Sarber, a health educator for the Resource Center, said it was important for the Resource Center to understand why students were turning to prescription drugs. 

Sarber said students could be using prescription drugs for a variety of reasons.  He said some might take drugs to help them study and focus while others might use them as an appetite suppressant.  Sarber said because this trend was so new, it was hard to determine exactly why students were using the drugs.

"A national statistic says that about one out of five college students has at least tried prescription drugs," Sarber said.  "Whether they take it on a continued basis or just to study is unknown."

Sarber said for now the Resource Center will just have to monitor the situation and continue to research the topic.  He said the Resource Center will turn to the Centers for Disease Control, drug companies and pharmacists to gather more information. 

As of now, Sarber said, he had done only one lecture devoted to prescription drug use but that he had seen a considerable increase in the requests for lectures about the topic.

"This is a topic that more and more students are becoming concerned with," Sarber said.  "This is something that we usually don't get a lot of requests on."

Sarber expects to have more lectures on the topic next semester.  Like the other topics covered by the Resource Center, Sarber said he would offer as many talks as the students needed.

Sarber said the Resource Center would rely on the Peer Health Educators at the center, resident assistants at residence halls, health chairs at scholarship halls and fraternity and sorority leaders to help educate students on the matter.

Bridgette Heine, St. Louis junior, is a Peer Health Educator for the Resource Center.  Heine said because prescription drug use was hard to monitor and there wasn't a lot of information on the subject, the next best thing would be to provide information on addiction.

Heine said lectures were good but it was important to get students involved.  She said the best way to accomplish this would be to provide students with examples of other students with prescription drug problems. 

"People think that they are young and that nothing will happen to them," Heine said.  "Well, something can happen to anybody."