Cognitive enhancers: consumption of psychostimulants in medicine

Psychostimulants are drugs that can be used to improve cognitive performance by students and health care professionals. This trend might establish a public health issue. The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence of psychostimulant use in medical students and resident doctors, and to id...

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Autores:
Latella, Andres
Sanchez de Paz, María Pilar
Mata-Suarez, Santiago Miguel
Bignone, Inés
Lerman, Damián
Rojas, Galeno
Tipo de recurso:
Article of journal
Fecha de publicación:
2022
Institución:
Corporación Universidad de la Costa
Repositorio:
REDICUC - Repositorio CUC
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.cuc.edu.co:11323/10141
Acceso en línea:
https://hdl.handle.net/11323/10141
https://repositorio.cuc.edu.co/
Palabra clave:
Psychostimulants
Drugs
Pharmacoepidemiology
Modafinil
Medical students
Psicoestimulantes
Fármacos
Farmacoepidemiología
Modafinilo
Estudiantes de medicina
Rights
openAccess
License
Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Description
Summary:Psychostimulants are drugs that can be used to improve cognitive performance by students and health care professionals. This trend might establish a public health issue. The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence of psychostimulant use in medical students and resident doctors, and to identify consumption related risk factors. The study was conducted through a self-administered, anonymous online survey. 355 respondents were included, 27% (n = 96) were resident doctors, 70.4% (n = 250) students and 2.5% (n = 9) specialists. 17.4% (n = 62) opted for psychostimulant drugs of which modafinil was the most chosen. The most desired effect was to improve wakefulness 83.6% (n = 51). The average age for consumers was 27.31±3.08 (p = 0.033). The multivariate analysis revealed that the predictive variables with highest risk of consumption were: having read the package insert (OR = 5.2; p = 0.0001), previous use of benzodiazepines (OR = 3.75; p = 0.045) and having considered ethical its use (OR=1.03; p = 0.0001). According to literature, the prevalent use of psychostimulants by doctors under training in our population might be higher than other countries. This study is an important source of information for health authorities as it highlights unrestricted access and inappropriate use of psychostimulants.