ArticlePsychosomatic medicine2020
Sense of Purpose in Life and Likelihood of Future Illicit Drug Use or Prescription Medication Misuse.
Article in Psychosomatic medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Purpose in life and mortality: A meta-analysis of the published literature and individual-participant data of 488,765 participants followed for up to 32 years.Psychological medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Purpose in life and stress: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 16 samples.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Pooled it
- Death anxiety and death-related depression in opioid use disorder: relationships with suicidal ideation, impulsivity, and psychological resilience.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Eudaimonia as Personal Growth: Decades of Research and Needed Future Directions.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Momentary and lagged associations between purpose in life and pain intensity in daily life.Journal of health psychology · 2026Article
- Purpose in life and coping strategies: Main associations and moderation by concurrent distress.PloS one · 2026Article
- Purpose in life in late adolescence and incident depression over 10 years.Journal of psychiatric research · 2026Article
- Identifying childhood correlates of adult purpose and meaning across 22 countries (Global Flourishing Study).Npj mental health research · 2025Article
- Meaning in life and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the UK Biobank.Journal of psychosomatic research · 2025Article
- What does a dollar mean to you? utilizing intrinsic rewards within contingency management.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Flourishing during stages of substance use recovery among members of The Phoenix: a United States sober-active community.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Appalachia - Bridging the Opioid Epidemic Amid the Fentanyl Crisis.The Linacre quarterly · 2024Article
- The Privilege of Well-Being in an Increasingly Unequal Society.Current directions in psychological science · 2024Article
- Are employment and social integration more strongly associated with deaths of despair than psychological or economic distress?Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Purpose in Life and Cognitive Function: Evidence for Momentary Associations in Daily Life.Innovation in aging · 2024Article
- Contributions of Eudaimonic Well-Being to Mental Health Practice.Mental health and social inclusion · 2023Article
- Biological age and brain age in midlife: relationship to multimorbidity and mental health.Neurobiology of aging · 2023Article
- Purpose in life and 8-year mortality by gender and race/ethnicity among older adults in the U.S.Preventive medicine · 2022Article
- What makes life purposeful? Identifying the antecedents of a sense of purpose in life using a lagged exposure-wide approach.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- The Beneficial Role of Involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous for Existential and Subjective Well-Being of Alcohol-Dependent Individuals? The Model Verification.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveIn the United States, 28.6 million people used illicit drugs or misused prescription drugs in the last 30 days. Thus, identifying factors linked with lower likelihood of future drug misuse is an important target for research and practice. Sense of purpose in life has been linked with better behavioral and physical health outcomes. Furthermore, a higher sense of purpose may reduce the likelihood of drug misuse because it has been linked with several protective factors including enhanced ability to handle stress, higher pain tolerance, and lower impulsivity. However, the association between sense of purpose and drug misuse has been understudied. Thus, we tested whether people with a higher sense of purpose at baseline had a lower likelihood of future drug misuse 9 to 10 years later.
methodsThis study included 3535 middle-aged adults from the Midlife in the United States Study who were not misusing drugs at baseline. Using multiple logistic regression models, we assessed whether baseline purpose in life was associated with risk of misusing drugs 9 to 10 years later.
resultsAmong respondents not misusing drugs at baseline, people in the highest quartile of purpose (versus lowest quartile) had a substantially lower likelihood of future drug misuse in a model adjusting for demographic variables (odds ratio = 0.50, 95% confidence interval = 0.31-0.83). Associations remained evident after additionally adjusting for psychological distress, baseline health, and health behaviors.
conclusionsA growing knowledge base suggests that a sense of purpose can be increased. Additional research is needed to evaluate sense of purpose as a novel target in the prevention and reduction of drug misuse.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.