Cited by 149Substance Abuse Treatment and OutcomesMental Health Treatment and AccessOpioid Use Disorder Treatment

College students rarely seek help despite serious substance use problems

Open access
Caldeira, Kimberly M., Kasperski, Sarah J., Sharma, Eva, Vincent, Kathryn B., O'Grady, Kevin E., Wish, Eric D., Arria, Amelia M.·2009·Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment

Abstract

The prevalence of substance use disorders (SUD) and aspects of the help-seeking process among a high-risk sample of 946 students at one large public university were assessed in personal interviews during the first 3 years of college. After statistically adjusting for purposive sampling, an estimated 46.8%(wt) of all third-year students met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition criteria for SUD involving alcohol and/or marijuana at least once. Of 548 SUD cases, 3.6% perceived a need for help with substance use problems; 16.4% were encouraged by someone else to seek help. Help-seeking was rare among SUD cases (8.8%) but significantly elevated among individuals who perceived a need (90.0%) or experienced social pressures from parents (32.5%), friends (34.2%), or another person (58.3%). Resources accessed for help included educational programs (37.8%), health professionals (27.0%), and 12-step programs (18.9%). College students have high rates of substance use problems but rarely recognize a need for treatment or seek help. Results highlight the opportunity for early intervention with college students with SUD.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jsat.2009.04.005

Cites

58 of 58 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 59 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 2003 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Questionnaire Retrieved September 26, 2006, from http://www.drugabusestatistics.samhsa.gov/nhsda/2k2MRB/2k2CAISpecs.pdf 30480921

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Caldeira, K. M., Kasperski, S. J., Sharma, E., Vincent, K. B., O'Grady, K. E., Wish, E. D., & Arria, A. M.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • Treatment Research Institute (US)
Corresponding author
Arria, Amelia M.
Venue
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2009-12
Volume
37
Issue
4
Pages
368-378
ISSN
0740-5472 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2079232632
Cited by
149
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 11
FWCI
4.72
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01-DA14845, R56DA014845, R01DA014845)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Opioid Use Disorder Treatment
Keywords
substance use disorders, help-seeking, university students, alcohol consumption, cannabis use, perceived need for help, social pressure, 12-step programs, early intervention
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Marijuana Abuse, Data Collection, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Patient Acceptance of Health Care, Severity of Illness Index, Social Support, Students, United States, Universities, Cohort Studies, Substance-Related Disorders, Alcohol-Related Disorders, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review