(1326) Measuring the Health Beliefs of College Aged Students Toward Recreational Drug Use: A Pilot Test of the Collegiate Survey on Recreational Drug Use and Health (CSRDUH)

Objectives: In the United States, over 27 million people reported using illicit drugs. Use is particularly prevalent among college-aged individuals transitioning to independent adulthood. While occasional recreational drug use may be relatively safe in those without pre-existing disorders, problematic drug use is associated with maladapted coping behavior and underlying psychopathology. The changing policy landscape and social discourse surrounding recreational drugs, however, suggest a widening gap between contextually appropriate use and disordered use in this population. A refreshed understanding of the association between maladaptive coping behavior, drug use initiation, and escalation is therefore needed. The Collegiate Survey on Recreational Drug Use and Health (CSRDUH) is a theoretically grounded instrument intended to measure college students’ young adults' health beliefs toward recreational drug use along with previously validated measures of avoidance coping, attitudes toward harm reduction, and support for drug policy reform. The objective of this study was to measure the internal consistency of the health belief constructs of the CSRDUH in a pilot sample of young adults.

Methods: From July 27,2023 to August 3,2023, a cross-sectional online 55-item 7-point Likert scale survey was administered via email to a pilot sample of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students (≥18, English speakers) in the United States using the Qualtrics panel survey platform. The CSRDUH is grounded in the health belief model and is intended to measure the cross-sectional correlation between students’ health beliefs regarding recreational drug use and coping behavior measured by the BRIEF-COPE. Two additional scales measuring harm reduction acceptance and drug policy support. The internal consistency and reliability of the health belief scales of the CSRDUH scales were evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha and item to total correlations. Items that exhibited poor item to total correlations ( < 0.5) were removed from the scale.

Results: One hundred and twenty-nine students responded to the pilot administration of the CRSDUH. The survey on average took students 17 minute, with a range of 7 to 36 minutes to complete. Psychometric analysis indicated the items from the SCRDUH scale had strong internal consistency, with Cronbach’s Alpha ranging from 0.75 to 0.97. Five items were removed to improve internal consistency of susceptibility of harm item, resulting in a final scale count of 50-items.

Conclusions: The health belief scales of the CRSDUH demonstrated acceptable internal consistency in this pilot sample. Unlike similar instruments that exist for surveillance or only measure susceptibility to the adverse effects of recreational drug use, our unique application of the health belief model will allow for more nuanced measurement of determinants of recreational drug use among college aged adults. This scale will advance research, public health interventions, and health communication programming aimed at reducing harm associated with recreational drug use in college aged adults.