College students mandated to substance use courses: Age-of-onset as a predictor of contemporary polysubstance use

Abstract

Objective: College campuses report alcohol and other drug policy violations as the most frequent reason students receive disciplinary referrals and, thus, are mandated to programming. This study sought to determine predictors of mandated students’ alcohol use frequency, and the likelihood of early-onset alcohol using college students enrolled in mandated programming engaging in current polysubstance use. Methods and participants: Employing a purposive sampling method, n = 822 participants were recruited from a pool of students who violated their university’s alcohol policy between October 2019 and July 2021. Results: Data analysis revealed early-onset alcohol use (p < .001), gender ID (p < .01), Greek Affiliation (p < .001), ethnicity (p < .05), and perceived norms (p < .001) significantly predicted alcohol frequency. Analysis also revealed engaging in early-onset alcohol use significantly predicted current participation in polysubstance use (p < 0.01), outside of controls. Conclusions: University programs should consider exploring polysubstance use targeted interventions to mitigate these harmful behaviors and associated negative consequences.

Keywords:

• Polysubstance use
• age-of-onset
• university
• mandated students
• alcohol
• other drugs

Authors’ contributions/roles

Benjamin N. Montemayor: Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing of original draft. Melody Noland: Conceptualization, review and editing of writing. Adam E. Barry: Conceptualization, review and editing of writing.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of the University of Kentucky.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Research ethics and patient consent

All procedures were vetted and approved by the IRB of the University of Kentucky (IRB number: 49173 Non-medical). In coordination with the collaborating campus organization, participants were made aware of this research study through a cover letter informing respondents of important study details such as voluntary participation in the study and permission for their de-identified and anonymous, aggregated data to be used for scientific publications. Respondents were able to opt out of sharing their anonymous data with the researchers by checking an opt out box. Thus, the requirement for documentation of informed consent was waived by the relevant IRB.