Medical and Non-medical use of psychiatric medications among medical students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

psychiatric medication use has increased recently among college students whether under medical use or non-medical use, which are anti-depressants, opioids, stimulants, analgesics, sedatives, and anxiolytics, and could be self-administered without medical supervision. Objectives: to determine the prevalence of medical and non-medical use of psychiatric prescription medications and its correlation with Academic performance, demographic data as well as the motives for the non-medical use methods: a cross-sectional study aims to asses the psychiatric medication use with or without prescription with the motives behind it, and demographic data of the students at medical colleges in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Results: A total of 1,268 responded to the questionnaire. 251 (20%) of the participant reported using sort of psychiatric medication in their lifetime, while 191(15%) participants used some sort of psychiatric medications in the last 12 months. Anti-depressants were most used in the surveyed population 144 (57%), followed by opioids/pain relief medications 62 (24%) and anxiolytics 39 (15%). Only 44 (3.5%) of surveyed students reported non-medical use of these psychiatric medication. Regarding the motives of non-medical use, the greatest portion reported to use it for ‘relax or relieve tension 12(29%), followed by ‘relieve pain” caused by other health problems 8(20%), and medication to ‘get through the day 6(15%). Conclusion: non-medical use of psychiatric medications among medical students in Riyadh is several times lower than reports by other researchers. Future research should focus on collecting more participants who are using medications without prescription and conduct cross-cultural studies to examine factors contributing to such low rates of illicit psychiatric medication use.