Is medicine use in adolescence risk behavior? Cross-sectional survey of school-aged children from 11 to 15

Purpose: To examine the association between smoking, drunkenness, and medicine use for headache, stomachache in getting to sleep, and nervousness in a representative sample of 11- to 15-year-old school-aged children. Methods: Design: Cross-sectional school-based survey. Setting: A random sample of schools in Denmark in 2002. Participants: All students in the fifth, seventh and ninth grades in these schools, n = 4824. Measurements: Self-reported medicine use for headache, stomachache, difficulties in getting to sleep, and nervousness within the last month; self-reported experience of drunkenness; self-reported smoking. Results: There was a strong and graded association between drunkenness and medicine use, even in models adjusted for the symptom for which the medicine was taken. There was a similar association between medicine use and smoking. Conclusions: The findings suggest that medicine use can be regarded as part of a cluster of risk behaviors among young people. (c) 2006 Society for Adolescent Medicine. All rights reserved.