Pseudo-cohort study finds rising prescription stimulant misuse in adolescent females and closing sex gaps in young adults, highlighting the need for sex-tailored prevention strategies.
Key Points
To evaluate time trends in prescription stimulant misuse and nonprescription stimulant use among youths and young adults by age, pseudo-cohort, and sex.
Constructed nationally representative age-by-survey-year pseudo-cohorts starting at age 12 using National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data from 2002–2019 and 2021–2023.
Analyzed past-year prescription stimulant misuse and nonprescription stimulant use across age, pseudo-cohort, and sex (50.7% male).
Prescription stimulant misuse was higher among females than males in mid-adolescence across cohorts, including a 2.3 percentage point difference at age 15 in the 2002 pseudo-cohort (p < .001) and a 2.1 percentage point difference at age 16 in the 2010 pseudo-cohort (p = .027).
Early adulthood nonprescription stimulant use was higher among males in the 2002 pseudo-cohort (4.4 percentage point difference at age 19, p < .001), but this sex difference narrowed over time to non-significance (p = .305 for 19-year-olds in recent cohorts).