Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2012
Poster Presentation
A Snapshot of Campus-Wide Licit and Illicit Use of Prescription Pain Medication
Meghan Alexandria Krase, Jamye Taylor, and Justin Valdez
Faculty Mentor: David J. Lane
Psychology
The illegal use of prescription pain medications by college students is becoming an
alarming issue. This study aimed to create a profile of the typical abuser and seek out
their possible motivations for using these pain medications. The participants, N=131,
took an online survey, answering questions regarding their legal and illegal use of
prescription medications, motives, and use of other substances like alcohol. There were
64 reported legal users and 28 reported illegal users. The motive questionnaire
consisted of 40 statements measuring the motives participants had for using
prescription medications. Other measures that were used included the Big Five
Personality Scale (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). A factor analysis showed there were
7 basic motivations for prescription drug use, although the most reported motivations for
taking pain medication were to ease pain and because it was pleasurable. Correlations
between the motivations, personality traits, and reported alcohol use were run for both
the whole population and the illegal users only. There were few significant correlations
amongst the illicit use population, possibly because of the small sample size. The whole
sample, however, had some significant correlations. The motives were correlated with
one another, suggesting that people use for multiple reasons. Reported drunkenness
(although not general alcohol use) was also positively correlated with illegal use. This
suggests that there may be a type of person who abuses substances in general.