Life Context Of Pharmacological Academic Performance Enhancement Among University Students: A Qualitative Approach

Background and authors

Question:

Discuss about the Health Inquiry for Journal of Drug Policy.

Hildt, E., Lieb, K., & Franke, A. G. (2014). Life context of pharmacological academic performance enhancement among university students - a qualitative approach. BMC Medical Ethics, 15(1), 23-23. doi:10.1186/1472-6939-15-23

Klaus Lieb is the head of the department of Psychiatry and psychotherapy of the Mainz University Medical Center. He is one of the members of the DrugCommission of the German Medical Association. He is also the member of founding member of the medical network 'MEZIS – Mein Essen zahl' ich selbst. Andreas Günter Franke is a trainee of the department. Therefore, his work can be considered to be trustworthy. Elisabeth Hildt was also head of the Research Group on Neuroethics/Neurophilosophy at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Mainz and has a large number of important journal articles on biomedical ethics. Hence the experts are really respectable for their contribution and hence their papers can be trusted.

The work was mainly conducted to develop an idea about the trend of use of the drug stimulants on individuals in their academic years and hence there was a little scope of conflict as the work was mostly exploratory. Had they developed a thesis statement before hand, there would have been a scope of conflict. They have mainly ventured the view of young individuals regarding their stimulant use and no conflicts were found among the findings and the conflict of use.

The authors mainly wanted to gather information about the reasons of the young individuals’ use of stimulants, their experiences after the use of stimulants and how the stimulants impact on the academic results along with their in and outside university lives.

They have established how arguments have been raised where lack of enhancing effects were stated by the researchers whereas other articles have given positive hints about the use of the drugs in developing regular activities like partying, getting higher and others among which academic had been a part. No work had been conducted where academics have been solely taken as matter of concern for studying the effects of the drugs. Most of them until now have mainly provide importance to the misuse of prescribed drugs in on mental enhancement (Prosek et al., 2017). Therefore, it was very important for researchers to determine the non-cognitive effect of psycho stimulant. Therefore, knowing the perceptions of students were much important. So they perfectly prepared the grounds of the study with identifying the knowledge gap.

Study Objectives

Face to face interviews were conducted in an extensive semi-structured procedure. They made sure that the participants are free from any psychiatric diseases and are not under any prescribed psychoactive medication.

Since they were in aim of developing a broad idea and needed answers of questions about perception of interviewees, therefore, this qualitative procedure is apt (Benson et al., 2015).

Mainly, students pursuing academic courses in the Mainz University were taken in considerations where 30 participants had applied via email and phone over an advertisement on bulletin boards. Out of them, 22 interviews were carried out and 8 were eliminated due to exclusion criteria. Out of this 4 interviews were not collected as the participants were diagnosed with ADHD.

Students take such medicines not only for developing their academic grades but also for a large number of other factors like for managing time, for maintaining work life balance, to release stress, to increase motivation and to cope with memorizing. Many have stated that the drugs help in remembering information and they feel that their brain becomes more receptive. However, on the other hand, many systems that the same information can be retained by the brain if studied earlier much before the exam rather than trying to learn in last moments. A large number of side effects are also noticed (King et al., 2014). This drug does not make complex information simple to be better adapted by brain but rather help in remembering the information when studied in last minute. Hence drug use for academic enhancement is a much as this medication mainly help in motivation, time management, manage outside activities other than academic along with helping students to learn important information in last minute by energizing them.

Munro, B. A., Weyandt, L. L., Marraccini, M. E., & Oster, D. R. (2017). The relationship between nonmedical use of prescription stimulants, executive functioning and academic outcomes. Addictive Behaviors, 65, 250-257. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.023

The main authors of the article is Bailey A. Munro, Lisa L. Weyandt, Marisa E. Marraccini b , Danielle R. Oster c. The first author is a post doctoral researcher at a Advanced Psychological Services of Rode island. She is working chiefly with the children, adolescents and adults suffering from ADHD. Moreover, she is an educator of the physiological psychology, organic chemistry, and introductory chemistry. Like her, the other members belong to b Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Bradley Hasbro Research Center, Providence, Rhode Island, United States and Department of Psychology, University of Rhode Island, United States and have large number of famous research work in their names. Their paper has been published by ‘Elsevier and hence their work is trustworthy and respectable.

Methodology

The hypothesis made by the authors conflicted with the findings of the paper. They had hypothesized two important facts. While the first fact aligned with the findings of the paper, the later fact did not align and there was a sharp contrast found between the author’s hypothesis and that of the findings of the paper.

The main research hypothesis that were laid down by the researchers are firstly, that students who have poorer executive functioning skills are more likely to get addicted to the non medical use of prescription stimulants (NMUPS) in comparisons to those students who have average level of EF. The second hypothesis is that (NMUPS) moderate the relationship between EF and academic performance.

According to the authors, there are many studies which have found out those students who have low executive functioning skills like poor planning, lack of self motivation, perform poor tests and many others usually use NMUPS at a very high rate they are mainly doing this to overcome the their deficits and to score well in academics. They get engaged in many risky behaviors. Papers have also found that students with ADHD have been benefitted from the use of NMUPS. However, direct relationship between both the EF and the use of NMUPS among college students has not been conducted.

A quantitative method was taken. After seeking permission, students had to apply through a face book portal where they were redirected to three important steps. The first one is the demographic questionnaire. The second was the Stimulant Survey Questionnaire (SSQ) which measured the non medical use of the stimulants. The next was the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale (BDEFS for Adult which measured their dimensions of executive functioning. T-test was then conducted with one continuous dependent variable of the Survey Questionnaire (SSQ) and that with the dichotomous independent variable like the presence or absence of the EF. For the second hypothesis, a two way between subjects anova was performed between two dichotomous independent variables (nonmedical use of prescription stimulant status and EF level) and that with the one continuous dependent variable (GPA). A post hoc analysis was also conducted to find link between the NMUPS (SSQ Self-Reported Prescription Stimulant Misuse) and the total and subscale scores of the BDEFs by the use of Pearson product-moment.

This approach was found to be important as the author wanted to establish hypothesis based on the relationship with two important factors where he wanted to know that the increase of one factor associated the increase of another factor. Since t tests are extremely helpful in depicting the associations between two factors, the test had been rightly chosen. As ANOVAs is helpful in determining whether there are any statistical significant differences are present between the means, therefore, it is extremely important for helping the authors for examining their second hypothesis where they wanted to find connections between NMUPS moderating EF or not.

Study Findings

There were 306 students selected for the research and other 6 were eliminated as they were not coming under the colleges selected for the study. They had a mean age of participants who were 20.77 and were mostly female. Participants form different races and backgrounds were included.

The first finding was that students who had lower levels of Ef were more dependent on the use of NMUPS in comparison to those who did not report of lower Ef. This study shows that this procedure helps them with time management. This did not help those who are not low of EF.

The second founding was that lowered Ef students scored lower GPA in exams and lower academic achievement. However, an interesting fact which it revealed is that the lowered levels of GPA due to lowered Ef are not moderated by NMUPS.

Taking stimulants without prescription form the doctors is an illegal activity and hence may bring out negative impacts if caught hold of one (Benett & Holloway, 2017). Still going on with the use of such drugs may pose risk on the student if caught without a prescription (Barth et al., 2017). Although the drug has been seen to enhance time management skills, cope up with stress, keeps motivated, induces energy to work for long, maintains work life balance and others, it has also many roles behind academic performance enhancement. However, a large number of side effects have bend depicted by both the authors like mood swings, depression, anxiety issues, abuses by the students, sleep deprivation and others which may make the students lead into a new phase of issues creating poor quality life (Van Dongen, 2015). Therefore, these may create barriers. Besides using they irresponsibly would lead to harmful side effects.

The research studies aligned completely with the pico questions at both of them described the effect of the stimulant drugs on academic skill enhancement. One of the papers saw students providing mixed reviews about the effects of the drugs on their academics. The paper stated that the drugs did not provide any extra advantage in simplifying nay complex information in the brain in case of information inculcation by the brain. However, some provided information that the drugs help them to concentrate and cope up with their motivation in the last hour of the preparation. They also suggested that not only academics, they also helped in maintaining work life balance, helped them in developing music and many others. Moreover, it is also stated by many students that if they studied beforehand, they would never require such drugs. Therefore, it satisfied the pico question giving the readers an idea about whether drugs have any positive influence in academic enhancement.

The second paper was also very much helpful in developing ideas about the use of drugs. The drugs are used in higher number with students who have poor executive functioning than those who have average executive functioning. This paper had completely stated that the use of such drugs do no moderate low GPA and executive functioning. This clearly answers Wasim’s query with the pico question and therefore, he should avoid using such medication as they have many side effects which might harm his academic life as well.

References:

Barth, K. S., Ball, S., Adams, R. S., Nikitin, R., Wooten, N. R., Qureshi, Z. P., & Larson, M. J. (2017). Development and Feasibility of an Academic Detailing Intervention to Improve Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Use Among Physicians. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 37(2), 98-105. doi: 10.1097/CEH.0000000000000149

Bennett, T., & Holloway, K. (2017). Motives for illicit prescription drug use among university students: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Drug Policy, 44, 12-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.02.012

Benson, K., Flory, K., Humphreys, K. L., & Lee, S. S. (2015). Misuse of stimulant medication among college students: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Clinical child and family psychology review, 18(1), 50-76. Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-014-0177-z

Hildt, E., Lieb, K., & Franke, A. G. (2014). Life context of pharmacological academic performance enhancement among university students - a qualitative approach. BMC Medical Ethics, 15(1), 23-23. doi:10.1186/1472-6939-15-23

King, M. D., Jennings, J., & Fletcher, J. M. (2014). Medical adaptation to academic pressure: schooling, stimulant use, and socioeconomic status. American Sociological Review, 79(6), 1039-1066. doi/abs/10.1177/0003122414553657

Munro, B. A., Weyandt, L. L., Marraccini, M. E., & Oster, D. R. (2017). The relationship between nonmedical use of prescription stimulants, executive functioning and academic outcomes. Addictive Behaviors, 65, 250-257. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.023

Prosek, E. A., Giordano, A. L., Turner, K. D., Bevly, C. M., Reader, E. A., LeBlanc, Y., ... & Garber, S. A. (2017). Prevalence and Correlates of Stimulant Medication Misuse Among the Collegiate Population. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 1-13. Doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/87568225.2017.1313691

Van Dongen, H. P. (2015). Sleep deprivation, stimulant medications, and cognition. Sleep Research Society: vol: 38, pp: 1145-1146 https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.4832