Prevalence of substance abuse among regular degree health science students in Sheba University College in Mekelle Town, Tigray - Ethiopia

Abstract

Background:Substance abuse (SA) refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs. The most common substances which are usually abused are alcohol and tobacco. Herein, we assessed the prevalence of SA among regular degree health science students of the Sheba University College (SUC).Materials and Methods:A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 1076 SUC students using self-administered structured questionnaire. The simple sampling technique was used to select students. Descriptive statistics, bivariate, and multivariate analysis were done.Results:The overall prevalence of “ever used substance” for at least one was 45.5%. The most commonly used drugs in descending order were alcohol (25.1%), cigarette (11.4%), and khat (9.2%). Male participants, urban setting, peer pressure, personal pleasure, and academic dissatisfaction and pocket money were highly associated with SA.Conclusion:This study showed a lower magnitude (45.6% ever use and 21% still using) of SA among students' compared to other studies. Even if a considerable decrease in SA among study subjects, the creation of awareness and health education should be continued to fully combat the problem of abuse.

Prevalence and Factors Associated with Current Cigarette Smoking among Ethiopian University Students: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…In this study, a total of 7,861 study participants were included from 13 studies. ese studies were carried out from January 2011 to December 2018 from 10 different universities in seven regions of the country: Addis Ababa � 1, Amhara � 3, Dire Dawa � 1, Oromia � 1, Somali � 2, SNNPR � 3, and Tigray � 1 [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. All of the studies included were cross-sectional with a sample size ranging from 271 to 1022 (Table 1).…”

Prevalence of, Factors Associated with and Level of Dependence of Psychoactive Substance Use among Mekelle University Students, Ethiopia

“…A similarly high lifetime prevalence of substance use has been reported at other Universities in Ethiopia: 62.4% at Haramaya University [25], 45% at Sheba University College at Mekelle [26] and 64% at Dire Dawa University [14]. One study among college students in Western Kenya revealed a slightly higher (70%) lifetime prevalence of psychoactive substance use [27].…”

“…Our finding that males are more likely to report current psychoactive substance use has been found before [15,16,19,20,[25][26][27][28]. The WHO (2011) reports a fivefold greater risk of death attributable to substance use [37] and a twofold greater risk of substance use disorder [38] among men than women.…”

“…A study in Hawassa University found seniority was positively associated with khat use with the highest current use among forth year students and above [29]. Similar findings were reported in Haramaya University of Ethiopia [26], Sudan [33] and Nigeria [19]. Sustained peer pressure, familiarity with how to access substances and the varieties available, as well as poor academic performance may explain the increase in substance use over time [21,32,33].…”

“…Studies in Bahir Dar and the Sheba University of the Mekelle Branch have also found higher rates of substance use among students of urban and semi-urban origin [20,26]. Urbanity has been positively associated with the perception of ease of access and the use, as well as females' harmful use of psychoactive substances [39,[41][42][43].…”