Premium
Time‐Use Patterns and the Recreational Use of Prescription Medications Among Rural and Small Town Youth
Author(s) -
Pulver Ariel,
Davison Colleen,
Pickett William
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the journal of rural health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.439
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1748-0361
pISSN - 0890-765X
DOI - 10.1111/jrh.12103
Subject(s) - recreation , medical prescription , recreational drug use , psychological intervention , poisson regression , medicine , rural area , environmental health , multilevel model , family medicine , psychiatry , drug , nursing , population , pathology , machine learning , political science , computer science , law
Purpose To examine the relationship between rural and small town adolescents’ time‐use and an increased risk for recreational use of prescription drugs in rural settings. Methods Rural students in grades 9 and 10 (n = 2,393) were asked about past‐year recreational use of prescription medications and their time‐use in structured and unstructured activity contexts in the 2009/2010 Cycle of the Canadian Health Behaviour in School‐aged Children survey. Time‐use patterns of rural and small town youth from across Canada were examined using multilevel, multivariate Poisson regression analyses to determine whether they may impact the risk of this kind of substance use. Findings Peer time outside school hours and nonparticipation in extracurricular activities were significantly associated with rural youths’ recreational use of prescription drugs. Peer drug use, unhappy home lives and frequent binge drinking explained most of these associations. Conclusions Structured and unstructured activity contexts within rural settings play a role in the nonmedical use of prescription medications. Results support interventions aimed at increasing structured time‐use opportunities in addition to focusing on peer contexts and multiple risk‐taking behaviors among rural youth.