The misuse of prescription painkillers is becoming a serious problem, resulting in emergencies that lead to a hospital visit. Many adolescents abuse narcotic painkillers, often taking them from the medicine cabinets of loved ones or obtaining them from friends. Therefore, as a precautionary measure, regular adolescent screenings and evaluations are highly recommended to detect early threats and drug abuse. It is expected that they will resist the idea of frequent screenings and evaluations and they will certainly try to find an escape from this practice.
Narcotics are highly addictive, and it is important for those who plan education and intervention, as well as treatment plans in order to understand the factors involved in this growing menace. The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), a function of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provides information about visits to the emergency department involving drugs.
In a DAWN’s report, information was revealed about emergency department visits made by adolescents that had used narcotic pain relievers. There were 69,236 emergency department visits that involved the misuse or abuse of prescription drugs. Of those, 14% were related to narcotic pain relievers.
Emergency department visits that involved narcotic pain relievers were largely related to the use of oxycodone products and hydrocodone products. More than three quarters of the adolescent emergency department visits involving narcotics included multiple drugs. 10% of the emergency department visits involved five or more substances.
The majority of the visits were made by older teens, with 72% aged 16 or 17 years. In addition, most of the visits were made by males, making up 59% of visits. For males, there was a greater chance of illegal substances being used in addition to the prescription narcotic painkiller. 46% of males who visited the emergency department for narcotic painkiller-related reasons also used illicit drugs, compared with 25% of females. There were no significant gender differences in the combination of narcotic painkillers with alcohol use.
Other illicit drugs were involved in 37% of emergency department visits related to narcotic painkiller use. The most common drug involved in the visit was marijuana. Alcohol was involved in approximately 17% of visits.
The report provides data on emergency department visits by adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old. Information from SAMHSA shows that narcotic painkiller use is second only to marijuana among adolescents. When teens misuse prescription drugs, they often do so because they believe that pain relievers are safer to use than illicit drugs.
Narcotic pain relievers have a chemical makeup similar to that of heroin, which can relieve pain, but also induces a high, a euphoric effect as a result of the brain receptors’ reaction to the drug. The number of emergency department visits related to narcotic pain relievers increased 155% in the five years, and SAMHSA reports that in the last decade deaths related to drug overdose have quadrupled. SAMHSA makes a recommendation that adolescents receive are supposed to get an education about the misperceptions of narcotic pain reliever misuse. In addition, parents are supposed to carefully monitor the use of any family members’ prescription painkillers.