WVU School of Nursing student researches substance misuse solutions

Gwendolyn Arnold, a senior at West Virginia University School of Nursing, took notice to the lack of education around drug misuse in West Virginia, and decided she needed to do something about it.

For Arnold’s senior year capstone project, she decided to research medication safety because of how prevalent the issue is in the community.

“There were two incidents about Mason Dixon Elementary students misusing medications so I felt this would be an important topic to educate young students about,” Arnold explained.

From her research, she discovered that there is a higher percentage of prescription drug misuse in Monongalia County than the rest of the state and nation. She found Monongalia County is at 29% while West Virginia is at 25% and the rest of the nation is at 5%.

Her findings showed that teaching with a video and activity sheets were an effective way to educate kindergarten students on medication safety. Since many of these students do not have the internet at home, it is important that they are educated on this topic while at school.

“Most of these students come from low-income households meaning that they may not have the economic stability or income to utilize health care resources. With low-income typically comes low education or health literacy which is a concern when educating on health issues.”

Arnold decided educating the students wasn’t enough. To go above and beyond, she created a poster to send home with the students that has key points of what was discussed in the presentation to also educate parents and legal guardians.

“Being from West Virginia means that I have been aware of how important drug use is and how rapidly the opioid epidemic has been progressing. Every year since the sixth grade, I have learned about drug misuse and its impact on individuals and on the state. I feel it is important to address this issue at an early stage and with the medications they may encounter on the daily. Some students are on daily medications at the school like ADHD medication or may carry an EpiPen. So, it is important that they know how to properly handle these medications.”

Arnold continued, “I am hoping that by exposing young students to this topic early on, they will practice safe medication use as they grow older. I am hoping that this will help to decrease the number of opioid overdoses in West Virginia’s future.”

During her research, she also found the West Virginia Drug Intervention Institute website which provides a teacher’s guide for educating elementary students on medication safety as well as other useful resources.

Arnold added, “I learned how to be a helping hand in the community and communicate effectively with the students about proper medication use and how to be safe with medicine. As a future nurse, I can use this knowledge to educate future patients in any field of nursing I go into.”

-WVU-

ap/8/23/2024

MEDIA CONTACT: Wendy Holdren
Director of Communications and Marketing
WVU School of Nursing
304-923-3591; wendy.holdren@hsc.wvu.edu