DSM-5 substance use disorders among college-age young adults in the United States: Prevalence, remission and treatment

Abstract

Objective: To determine the prevalence, remission, and treatment associated with DSM-5 substance use disorders (SUDs) among young adults based on college attendance. Participants: The population-based sample included 2,057 young adults aged 19–23 in college/school and 1,213 not currently attending college/school who participated from April 2012 through June 2013. Methods: Face-to-face interviews were conducted as part of a cross-sectional national survey. Results: The prevalence of any past-year DSM-5 SUD was 39.6% among young adults in college and 44.5% among those not attending college. Past-year tobacco use disorder and multiple DSM-5 SUDs were more prevalent among those not attending college. Among those with prior-to-past-year SUDs, abstinent remission was low among college (1.0%) and noncollege (1.9%) young adults. Conclusions: Approximately two in five U.S. college students had at least one past-year DSM-5 SUD. Sustained abstinent remission from SUDs is extremely rare (1–2%) and the majority of those with SUDs do not receive treatment.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• DSM-5
• epidemiology
• other drugs
• substance use disorder

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, editorial staff, and Ms. Kara Dickinson for her help editing and formatting this manuscript. Data availability statement: The data that support findings of this study are available from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under a data use agreement for this study. Data are available from NIAAA [https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/research/nesarc-iii] with the permission of the NESARC-III Data Access Committee.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors report no possible conflicts of interest and no financial relationships with commercial interests.

Additional information

Funding

The development of this manuscript was supported by a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) research grant (R01AA025684), a NIAAA training grant (T32AA007477), National Cancer Institute (NCI) research grants (R01CA203809 and R01CA212517), and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) research grants (R01DA031160, R01DA036541, R01DA043691, and R01DA043696). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIAAA, NCI, NIDA, or the National Institutes of Health. The sponsors had no additional role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. There was no editorial direction or censorship from the sponsors. This manuscript was prepared using a limited access dataset obtained from NIAAA and does not reflect the opinions or views of NIAAA or the U.S. Government.