Joseph's Role Of Opioid Education For Youth

josephrole Of Opioid Education For The Youthesther Josephmiami Region

Joseph Role of Opioid Education for the Youth Esther Joseph Miami Regional University ENC 2201— Report Writing and Research Methods Research Paper Dr. Uliana Gancea April 11, 2020 Opioid Abuse by the Youth Opioids are substances that act on the opioid receptors so as to produce a morphine like outcome. They are used for pain relief, including anesthesia. They are also used to suppress diarrhoea, replacement therapy for opioid use disorder, suppressing cough as well as for executions in the United States. Opioids apart from being used for medical purposes they are also frequently used for non-medical purposes.

When induced they give a euphoric effect and can also be used to prevent withdrawal (Satterley & Anitescu, 2015). In the United States there have been a lot of youths who use opioids for their euphoric effects. Due to their addictive nature, they have seen a lot of youths addicted to the substances which many result to fatal and adverse effects on the substance abuser. Opioids are responsible for 1.7 deaths in 10, 000 people. Most of these people are young adults between 18 years to 25 years.

Due to the rise in the use of this substances there have been introduction of educating the youths about the drugs. This is to create awareness as well as educate the youth on what to expect if they get themselves mixed up with the practice. In this paper we pose the question, what is the role of opioid education to the youth? We will talk about the impact that the program will have on the youths, be it positive or negative (Knaggs, 2019). Opioids act by binding to opioid receptors, these are found principally in the peripheral and central nervous system as well as the gastrointestinal tract.

These receptors mediate both the somatic as well as the psychoactive effects that opioids cause. Opioid drugs include antagonists like naloxegol which are used for opioid induced constipation and partial agonists like the anti diarrhoea drug loperamide (McDONOUGH, 2016). Due to opioids nature of being addictive and might result in fatal overdose, most of them are controlled substances. In the year 2013, between 28 and 38 million people were using opioids illicitly. That is 0.6% to 0.8% of the global population between the ages 15 and 65.

In the year 2011, it was estimated that 4 million people in the United States used opioids recreationally and were dependent on them. As of 2015, increased numbers of recreational use and addiction were attributed to over prescription of the medication and inexpensive illicit heroin. Literature review The National Institutes of Health has a healing initiative for over 50 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain. Opioids medications are the most common for treating pain although effective and safe non opioid options for pain management are lacking. The used of opioids to treat acute and chronic pain has contributed to approximately 10.3 million people aged 12 years and older in the united states in 2018 who abused opioids (Hubbell & Reid, 2018).

In 2018, National Institutes of Health, in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, identified a set of research that when prioritized will reflect urgent unmet needs across the lifespan. Areas that show promising scientific opportunity as well as concrete strategies that are very possible of providing durable and rapid solutions to the opioids crisis. Through this initiative, National Institutes of Health supports research to enhance pain management as well as improving treatment for opioid addiction and misuses (McDONOUGH, 2016). With improved treatment, there will be a added positive results rate and more youth will be motivated to go through the process. The initiative includes research focus areas that are led by 12 National Institutes of Health ICs supporting hundreds of projects that reflect the full spectrum of research from basic science direct to the implementation research.

This research serves the overall same purpose as that of opioid education among the youth (Satterley & Anitescu, 2015). They both seek to have a world that is free of opioid dependency and abuse. It is important to understand that it is not easy for anyone to recover form an addiction and as so is the case with opioid abusers. If it can be rectified in their youth years that will mean that it will be less hard that it would have been if they tried to quit the habit at an older age. Initiatives that help this to happen should be given support by citizens as well as the whole government (Knopf, 2017).

In the youth years since one has not used opioids for a long time, there are reversible damages to the brain and body which would only get worse after years of use. The researches being carried out should also be accompanied by new rules about purchasing of opioids. There should be a better research to find out how to make medicines that lack the components known to give the euphoric feeling in opioid abusers (Pfeiffer, 2019). This means that most of these drugs will need a prescription to access which will surely reduce how much they are abused by the youths. Method This study used a meta-analysis approach; the information gathered through this approach from the relevant eligible sources findings used for this study, the results obtained from the various sources summarized when compiling this report.

Various scientific studies and journals, to collect the required data, the data then synthesized and compiled. The Studies used in this study entailed the ones that featured a randomized trial method. Whereas different studies were analyzed, the primary focus was on the ones that involved experiments that lasted more than a month. Also, ones that had recorded results before the study and compared the outcomes with the results obtained after that. A case study approach was used to analyze previous works by researchers and the available secondary data.

The study's primary focus was on both qualitative and quantitative data collected from first-hand experiments and observations. The study used a meta-analysis search strategy on various databases, including but not limited to google scholar, where original papers relating to the study and that investigated opioid education for the youth as a contemporary real-life phenomenon were identified. This approach was preferable because it was not only cost and time effective but also provided an in-depth analysis of the study topic (Paterson et al., 2001). The data collection process took a two-step approach that entailed the identification of credible and eligible sources of information relating to the topic and identified through a filtering process using the study’s keywords (Paterson et al., 2001).

The keywords used in the process included; "opioid education," "youth,"‘’ contemporary real-life phenomenon.’’ After the determination of the relevant and eligible studies that suited the selected keywords, the process moved to the next step that was to assess their respective years of publication as the study only required sources that were less than 5yrs old. After that, the content of the studies analyzed, their abstracts perused to establish the ones that suited the study objective. Later, relevant data gathered from the chosen sources, then synthesized, and analyzed to create new data. Emphasizing on studying individual youth’s lived experiences within the world of drugs, more specifically, on youth’s experiences ranging from emotion, perception, and imagination regarding the use of opioids.

Results

There has been a recommendable decline in opioid misuse as have been indicated by the results from a study conducted under the senior and junior category of people who engage in opioid abuse. The decline is reported to be as a result of measures which currently govern prescription opioid exposure. In the past, many adolescents could access opioid prescriptions from negligence in handling opioid prescription by users. Also, the decline can be reported to be as a result of periodic awareness that has been created peer educators in educating youths about these substances and their adverse effects towards someone. The use of media in creating awareness on the impact of substance abuse has also contributed immensely in the decline of opioid misuse.

Adolescents are at high risk of engaging in substance abuse. Many students reported that adolescent stage is a stage of self-realization that is highly confusing and is associated with mixed emotions, thus exposing teenagers to take drugs as a means to escape reality. Since brain reward center development mainly occurs during the adolescent stage, teenagers tend to start discriminating more carefully between rewards. The ability to distinguish between meaningful and fewer rewards is considered a significant factor that has motivated youths to substance abuse (Reid, Wild, & Bozarth, 2020). Teens are motivated toward obtaining meaningful rewards. When they get these rewards, they can afford to purchase drugs which eventually make them be addicts in future. This can explain why peak stages of substance use initiation occur during adolescent stages and early childhood stages (McDONOUGH, 2016). Adolescents are unskilled and unable to conduct executive functions such as self-monitoring, impulse control and error corrections which are used in the decision-making process. These functions typically take time to develop and only occur at later stages of development in human life. This usually makes it hard for adolescents to make right decisions, and they become at risk of substance abuse than adults.

Immaturity of the prefrontal cortex during early stages of human development tends to leave the brain reward centre more vulnerable, thus making it develop changes which might result in a neurologic disorder of addiction. Premature prefrontal may result in substance use disorder among teenagers than adults since the risk of developing a substance use disorder is related to the initiation stage of drug use. Delayed substance use initiation into adulthood is associated with a reduced risk of one ever developing a SUD (Reid, Wild, & Bozarth, 2020). This is one of the reasons and importance for the government early interventions and prevention strategies that are designed to delay initiation as well as a reduced use in this group.

Environmental factors cause psychological vulnerability to substance use. These environmental factors include the availability, promotion and modeling of substance use behaviors (Bain & Kornetsky, 2020). Teenagers are typically sensitive to the influence of cultural messaging. The three choices are driven by either the availability or also cultural acceptability; this includes the perceived harm they bring. Discussion Substance use results into vast majority of life years lost due to illnesses, disability and premature deaths among those aged 15 to 24. It is arguably the most important modifiable health behavior that has impacted the youth. Due to the times we are in, youth are faced by a vast landscape of more potent products, new delivery methods, and synthetic alternatives such as electronic cigarettes, fentanyl, codeine products and potent cannabinoids. These are far more addictive than psychoactive substances that were available to teenagers in the past (Reid, Wild, & Bozarth, 2020). Marijuana, alcohol and tobacco products are more commonly used in high school students as compared to opioids abuse thus the secondary prevention that is to say, initiating treatment of other substance use way before the use of opioids ever begin as logical strategy.

The American academy of pediatrics has called on pediatricians to screen all young adults as well as adolescents for use of substance use and manage the whole spectrum, starting from preinitiation to SUD. Integrating SUD treatments within a pediatrics primary care, as well as engaging primary care providers in managing of substance use as they do to people with other disorders, it has the potential to radically revise as well as dramatically increasing access to SUD treatment for the youths (Drake, 2017). Among adolescents, Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) are not as common as tobacco, marijuana and alcohol disorders although the death rate of patients with untreated OUD is high. The treatment of OUD include prescription medications, there is use of model that combines both primary care management as well as an integrated behavioral health specialists while at the same time having an expert backup which has demonstrated as being acceptable in the pediatric primary care as well as being feasible with the subspecialist support (Pfeiffer, 2019).

Limitations

There are specific implications that have been realized in an attempt to create awareness on substance abuse. The use of media and other sources to develop knowledge has influenced teenagers negatively towards substance use. Many youths have been curious about the drugs and at some point are tempted to try the drugs out without considering their implications. Students also obtain information during media commercialization of the drugs and have been able to locate how to acquire and use the drugs. This is the reason why many teenagers are involved in opioid abuse as opposed to other medications that are not being televised against marijuana and heroin.

Even though recognizing that my results cannot determine casualty, it seems prudent for clinicians to not only discuss with teenagers the direct dangers of substance abuse but also review the observed factors that can expose adolescents to abuse drugs. When physicians and other psychologists identify youths with opioid prescription abuse, they should have a heightened awareness associated with how opioid misuse can affect their health, class performance and socialization thereby they can give potential opportunities for prevention and education. The educators should consider the higher likelihood of substance abuse on adolescents than adults. Additionally, psychiatrists evaluating patients for opioid misuse should take into consideration the risk factor of drug abuse such as suicide attempt.

There were a few limitations that should be considered when interpreting results. First, the study was cross-sectional, thus limiting the possibility of determining the casualty of outcomes. However, this study provides predisposing factors associated with opioid misuse. Moreover, additional covariates such as performance in class and socioeconomic status may not have been considered in this study but may have implications on the results. Also, sources of motivation for opioids were not assessed in this study but could influence findings.

Conclusion

These limitations notwithstanding, I report that adolescents who are involved in opioid misuse are more likely to have been influenced by one or any of these predisposing factors, all of which contribute to significant adverse health outcomes. Future efforts should be directed on better understanding and addressing early predictors of opioid misuse among youth. Furthermore, counseling of addicted opioid users minimizes the overall dangers and effects of opioid misuse.

References

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