Australian University Students’ Coping Strategies and Use of Pharmaceutical Stimulants as Cognitive Enhancers

Frontiers in Psychology

Charmaine Jensen¹ 

关键词: prescription stimulants;    cognitive enhancement;    stress;    coping;    university students;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00277

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Background: There are reports that some university students are using prescription stimulants for non-medical ‘pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement (PCE)’ to improve alertness, focus, memory, and mood in an attempt to manage the demands of study at university. Purported demand for PCEs in academic contexts have been based on incomplete understandings of student motivations, and often based on untested assumptions about the context within which stimulants are used. They may represent attempts to cope with biopsychosocial stressors in university life by offsetting students’ inadequate coping responses, which in turn may affect their cognitive performance. This study aimed to identify (a) what strategies students adopted to cope with the stress of university life and, (b) to assess whether students who have used stimulants for PCE exhibit particular stress or coping patterns.

【 授权许可】

CC BY