Substance Use Pattern among Nursing Students in Jos, North Central Nigeria

Abstract

Aim: To establish the substance use pattern and psychological distress among the in-coming nursing students of the College with a view towards recommending ways to prevent or reduce complications of substance use disorder in the college. Study design: A cross-sectional design was used. Place and duration: The study took place at the College of Nursing and Midwifery, Jos, Plateau state between the 3 rd and 14 th of February, 2020. Methodology: The study was carried out during the orientation program of the 206 first-year students of the college. Following approval, a health talk and explanation of the aims and objectives, their consent was obtained in writing. Two-staged sampling with a sociodemographic questionnaire and Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 followed by urine drug testing was done. The participants were debriefed on the findings while maintaining strict confidentiality. There were 65 males and 141 females. Results: Lifetime prevalence rate of any substance use was 21.8%. More females 33 (23.4%) than males 12 (18.5%) used substances. Only 9 (4.5%) volunteered their substance use, the rest was revealed by the urine testing. Prevalence of alcohol was 23 (11.2%), ketamine 13 (6.3%), nicotine 3 (1.5%), benzodiazepines 3 (1.5%), cannabis 2 (1.0%) and opiods 1 (0.5%). Symptoms of psychological distress were high as 118 (57.3%) and 82 (38.8%) were symptomatic for anxiety and depression respectively. Alcohol use was significantly related with having symptomatic anxiety (P = 0.02) and depression (P = 0.00) in the study. Conclusion: Considering the high prevalence of substance use among the participants, educational intervention and policies should be designed to prevent substance dependence with its complications within the students.

Patterns of Substance use among Young People in Ado Ekiti, Southwest, Nigeria

“…Research had shown that the patterns of use, episodic and frequent psychoactive substance were found strongly associated with lower socioeconomic status and lower parental education [23]. Epidemiological survey conducted in Jos South, North Central Nigeria by Charles [24] put the proportion of alcohol use at 93.8%, cough syrup (67.0%), tramadol (65.0%), cigarette (35.6%) and cannabis (26.8%). Study had demonstrated that about 6% of the respondents had used cannabis once or twice, and daily (1.5%), while 2.3% of the respondent had used ecstasy once or two times, while 0.5% daily in the last 30days [25].…”