¹Humanities and Foreign Languages, Santa Fe College, FL, USA
²Sciences for Health Programs, Santa Fe College, FL, USA
³HCA Graduate Medical Education, North Florida Division, FL, USA
⁴College of Medicine, University of Central Florida, FL, USA DOI : 10.35333/jrp.2019.26 The prescription and illicit use of opioids has greatly increased over the past 2 decades leading to what is currently recognized as the opioid epidemic. In this study, we evaluated the impact of an educational event on the perceptions of college students about opioid use and addiction. A survey was given to 61 students in a community college. The responses of the students who attended the conference (n=31) were compared with those who did not attend (n=30). All the respondents, regardless of the conference attendance, agreed that the opioid use is a serious problem for the community and the individual. Students stated that single use of opioids does not cause addiction (control 59% vs intervention 41%). Overall, 80% of the students agreed that short term use of opioids can cause addiction; however, almost half of these (43%) believed that they will not be addicted after a short term use. There was no significant difference between the two groups. However, the students younger than 25 were two times more likely to believe that they will not be addicted after a short term use of opioids (OR 2.1). This was lower among the students who attended the educational session. Furthermore, educational session significantly (p=0.02) increased their knowledge of opioids (45% vs 55% in the intervention group answered the question correctly). Even though the sample size is too small to draw a generalized conclusion, the present findings demonstrate the importance of the educational activities in increasing awareness towards opioid use and abuse. Keywords : Opioids; college; students; perception; awareness; addiction; education