The Role of Descriptive Social Norms in Opioid and Other Substance Use Among College Students

Recreational opioid use among college students has increased steadily over the past decade, and has been shown to be influenced by social pressures. Social norm informed interventions have been used to help correct student misperceptions of peer substance use and curb personal substance use, however most of this research has been centered on alcohol use. This study examined the role of descriptive social norms of two peer reference groups (close friend and acquaintance) at two time periods (30 days and 12 months) in a number of different substances, including opioids, alcohol, marijuana, stimulants, sedatives, and psychedelics in a diverse sample of undergraduate college students at the University of New Mexico. In addition, differences in perceptions of peer opioid use was examined between recreational opioid users and non-users. Results indicated that descriptive close friend norms predicted personal substance use across all substances at both time points, and descriptive acquaintance norms predicted personal substance use for all substances, except opioids, at both time points. In addition, those who used opioids recreationally perceived their close friends and acquaintances to use more opioids in the past 30 days, however no differences emerged within the past 12 months. This study provides preliminary support for the effectiveness of social norm informed interventions to help curb growing recreational opioid use among college students

Innovative treatment formats, technologies, and clinician trainings that improve access to behavioral pain treatment for youth and adults

Chronic pain is prevalent across the life span and associated with significant individual and societal costs. Behavioral interventions are recommended as the gold-standard, evidence-based interventions for chronic pain, but barriers, such as lack of pain-trained clinicians, poor insurance coverage, and high treatment burden, limit patients’ ability to access evidenced-based pain education and treatment resources. Recent advances in technology offer new opportunities to leverage innovative digital formats to overcome these barriers and dramatically increase access to high-quality, evidenced-based pain treatments for youth and adults. This scoping review highlights new advances. First, we describe system-level barriers to the broad dissemination of behavioral pain treatment. Next, we review several promising new pediatric and adult pain education and treatment technology innovations to improve access and scalability of evidence-based behavioral pain treatments. Current challenges and future research and clinical recommendations are offered

Pain Laterality and Depression

Testing the relationship between chronic pain laterality and depression: A Collaborative Health Outcomes Information Registry stud

The relation of self‐compassion to functioning among adults with chronic pain

Previous research has shown that self‐compassion is associated with improved functioning and health outcomes among multiple chronic illnesses. However, the role of self‐compassion in chronic pain‐related functioning is understudied. The present study sought to understand the association between self‐compassion and important measures of functioning within a sample of patients with chronic pain. Treatment‐seeking individuals (N= 343 with chronic pain) that were mostly White (97.9%) and female (71%) completed a battery of assessments that included the Self‐Compassion Scale (SCS), as well as measures of pain‐related fear, depression, disability, pain acceptance, success in valued activity, and use of pain coping strategies. Cross‐sectional multiple regression analyses that controlled for age, sex, pain intensity, and pain duration, revealed that self‐compassion accounted for a significant and unique amount of variance in all measures of functioning (r2 range: .07 – .32, all p < .001). Beta weights indicated that higher self‐compassion was associated with lower pain‐related fear, depression, and disability, as well as greater pain acceptance, success in valued activities, and utilization of pain coping strategies. These findings suggest that self‐compassion may be a relevant adaptive process in those with chronic pain. Targeted interventions to improve self‐compassion in those with chronic pain may be useful