Resilience and psychiatric symptoms as mediators between perceived stress and non-medical use of prescription drugs among college students

ABSTRACT

Background: Due to the high prevalence of non-medical use of prescription drugs (NMUPD; i.e., use of these drugs without a doctor’s prescription) among college students, it is important to identify psychosocial factors relevant to NMUPD. Prior research shows a link between perceived stress, psychiatric symptoms and NMUPD. Resilience is an essential concept in adaptive coping that emphasizes that resilience protects people against stress. Substantial evidence shows the mediation effect of resilience on the relationship between stress, psychiatric symptoms, and substance use. However, scant literature has examined associations between resilience and NMUPD.

Objectives: The current study explored the relationship among perceived stress, psychiatric symptoms, resilience, and NMUPD in college students.

Methods: Online data were collected from 1,052 undergraduates (68.7% females) with an average age of 19.8 years in 2016 in Virginia, United States, using anonymous surveys assessing perceived stress, psychiatric symptoms (i.e., depression and social anxiety), resilience (i.e., tenacity, tolerance, acceptance, control, and spirituality), and past-three-month NMUPD (i.e., opioids, sedatives, anxiolytics, and stimulants). Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis.

Results: Resilience together with psychiatric symptoms completely mediated the effects of perceived stress on NMUPD. Resilience completely mediated the relationship between perceived stress and psychiatric symptoms. The goodness-of-fit indicators suggested a good fit of data (RMSEA = .04; CFI = .97; TLI = .96; WRMR = 1.37).

Conclusions: Resilience appears to offer protection that can mitigate the effects of perceived stress and psychiatric symptoms on NMUPD. Future interventions related to NMUPD among college students should attend to resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-medical use of prescription drugs
• opioids
• stimulants
• resilience
• psychiatric symptoms
• college students

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at tandfonline.com/iada.

Financial disclosure

The authors have no relevant financial conflicts to report.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this manuscript was supported in part by the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under award number 5R21DA038852. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health