Prevalence of stimulant use among medical students /
Liberty Jury M. Agdeppa, GeanAntonette F. Arrojo, Lorenzo Miguel B. Baltazar, Bernadette N. Bautista, Dia Grace D. Bautista, Ma. Karla Michelle G. Dancel, Selynelle Joy P. De Castro, Mark Jesus C. Domingo, Kathrina Angela D. Esquivel, Miko B. Galutera, Christian Philip C. Garcia, Loise Monica Faye A. Lim, Danielle Mae M. Pangilinan and Alexa Rae Solano.
- Fairview, Quezon City: Department of Community and Family Medicine, FEU-NRMF, 2020.
- illustrations, tables; 28 cm.
Includes appendices and bibliographical references.
Abstract: Stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and prescription drugs are patronized by medical students to cope with their academic demands because of its perceived effects such as, mood elevation, stress reduction, improves concentration, intellectual capacity, and memory, increases alertness and wakefulness. A cross-sectional study design using a self-administered questionnaire that was distributed to medical students. The data used for this study was derived from several studies done on caffeine consumption of medical students and undergraduate students. Averaging all the percentages of studies on medical students' caffeine consumption., 94.12 % turned out to be caffeine consumers, and 5.86% were non-consumers. Most of the consumers used caffeine to stay alert while half of the non-consumers refrained from it due to its harmful health effects (50%). Caffeine consumption of medical students averaged at 384.43 mg/day which is classified under moderate intake but is significantly higher compared to consumption in regular college-aged population. Average Percentage derived from all the studies show that majority of medical students are still classified under low caffeine intake (60.65%) but a significant proportion was under moderate and high intake with 25.67% and 12.69%, respectively. With these findings from various sources, we conclude that there was a high prevalence of usage and dependence of stimulants, particularly caffeine, among medical students and there is a need for provision of campus awareness programs teaching alternative coping strategies, awareness of stimulant adverse effects, and skill in reading nutrition labels. This will help encourage those under moderate and high consumption to decrease usage to acceptable limits without sacrificing mood and performance.
Thesis - Department of Community & Family Medicine