Publication Date

Spring 2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Jesslyn Chong; Sean Laraway; Susan Snycerski

Abstract

The opioid epidemic remains a public health crisis, with overdose rates continuing to rise. Associations between individuals opioid use and knowledge of and attitudes toward opioid substances and overdoses have been investigated to inform educational interventions. However, many studies utilize college student or adolescent samples, and findings remain inconclusive. An assessment of opioid knowledge and attitudes across broader adult populations is lacking. Concurrently, replication literature in the social sciences is limited, therefore, the present study replicated and expanded upon Williams et al. (2013) and Vyas et al. (2023) studies. Reliability and validity of the Opioid Knowledge scale, Opioid Overdose Knowledge Scale (OOKS), and the Opioid Overdose Attitudes Scale (OOAS) was assessed using a large sample of U.S. student and non-student adults. Differences in opioid knowledge between opioid users and non-users was also assessed. The Opioid Knowledge scale and OOAS demonstrated acceptable reliability, while reliability of the OOKS was questionable across its four domains. The Opioid Knowledge and OOKS showed partial construct validity, with strong significant correlations to each other, but weak correlations to the OOAS, albeit statistically significant. There was no significant difference in Opioid Knowledge scores between Users and Non-users. The current research extends prior findings beyond academic settings to better reflect the diversity of adult opioid use to inform future educational interventions, while concurrently adding to the social sciences reproducibility literature. Keywords: Opioid Use, Opioid Overdose, Replication, Reliability, Construct Validity

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