Prescriptions for teens and young adults on the rise in the USA, leading to abuse

American adolescents and young adults are most likely to abuse prescription medications. Yet prescription rates for controlled medications, or drugs the US Drug Enforcement Administration deems as having the potential for abuse, have nearly doubled for those age groups in the past 14 years, according to a recent study published in Pediatrics. Overall, a controlled medication was prescribed for young adults at approximately one out of every six visits and for young adult by adolescents one out of every nine encounters.

"Physicians must balance the need to treat patients' symptoms while remaining aware of the possibility that prescription medications can be misused or shared with others. At times, it can be a delicate balance between treating a problem and inadvertently causing one," said Robert Fortuna, principal investigator of the study and assistant professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Rxs for controlled medicines nearly doubled