Inhalation of computer duster spray among adolescents: an emerging public health threat?

Anecdotal reports and recent medical examiner and poison control center studies suggest that computer duster spray (CDS) inhalation is an emerging public health threat. However, there is a current dearth of empirical data on CDS use.

Study aims were to examine the prevalence, frequency, correlates, and modalities of CDS use among a treatment sample of antisocial youth.

A battery of standardized psychosocial instruments was administered via interview of 723 Missouri adolescents in residential care for antisocial behavior.

Lifetime CDS use was prevalent (14.7%) in this young service population (97.7% of whom participated). CDS users were significantly more likely to report histories of perinatal injuries or illness, traumatic experiences, suicidality and physician-diagnosed mental illness, and evidenced higher levels of psychiatric symptoms, antisocial attitudes and behaviors, and polydrug use than CDS nonusers.

CDS use was endemic in this treatment sample of adolescents and associated with a range of clinically significant comorbidities. Current findings describe an underrecognized and potentially dangerous form of substance misuse that has rarely been studied but that may be of growing importance.