Background: Consumption of alcohol by secondary school students is a major public health concern globally, but its prevalence is not known in secondary schools in Port Harcourt. Objective: To determine the prevalence and factors associated with alcohol use among secondary school students in Port Harcourt. Methods: This was a cross sectional school based study conducted in Port Harcourt in March 2014. A 20 itemed structured, self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 1080 senior secondary 1 to 3 students from 10 public secondary schools selected through Multistage Sampling technique. Questions asked covered drinking of alcohol, frequency of drinking and being drunk in the past 30 days before the survey. Other behaviours sought were smoking of cigarette, use of cocaine and going out in the evening for fun. Sociodemographic was also sought. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: 1080 students participated in the study, mean age 16.09±6SD and male to female ratio of 0.9: 1. Prevalence of current drinking of alcohol was 30.6% and 38.1% of current drinkers were also drunk in the past 30 days, with 17.2 % being very frequently drunk. The behaviour which showed a strong association with drinking of alcohol, being drunk and the frequency of being drunk was going out in the evening for fun and recreation. Gender showed a positive association with drinking of alcohol, as more males drank alcohol with in the past 30 days compared to the females (p=0.000). Smoking of cigarette in the past 30 days and truancy were positively associated with being drunk, while academic grades showed an inverse relationship with consumption of alcohol. Majority of those who drank alcohol (42.6%) were experimenting with alcohol, though 5.4% drank due to addiction. Majority (39.3%) bought their drinks from stores and supermarkets. The most Common problems experienced by the drinkers were fatigue, alcohol made them behave in ways they later regretted and it hurt their relationships. Conclusion: Alcoholism is a serious problem with secondary school students in Port Harcourt. It is linked with truancy, poor academic achievement and other substances use. The most serious health and social problem experienced by the drinkers is addiction.

The prevalence of smoking in adolescents in Port Harcourt is high and is associated with parental smoking and poor knowledge of cancer of the lungs as a harmful effect. We recommend that adolescent health education with an emphasis on the harmful effects of smoking be included in the curriculum of all secondary schools.

The rate of bullying was found to be very high in secondary schools in Port Harcourt.

Child sexual abuse has been defined as the involvement in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend and is unable to give informed consent to [1]. It includes acts, forceful or otherwise, of inappropriate sexual solicitation, genital touching or fondling, exposure of a child by an older person, intercourse through oral, anal or vaginal penetration and attempted intercourse [2]. Children may be sexually abused by both adults and other children (who are by virtue of their age or stage of development) in a position of responsibility, trust or power over the child victim [1-3].

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