Prevalence and Causes of Substance Abuse Among Undergraduate Medical College Students.
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Date
2014-08
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Abstract
Increasing substance abuse and its impact
on physical and psychosocial health is a worldwide public
health concern. Adolescence is the period when initiation
of these habits usually takes place. During adolescence
students are more vulnerable due to increased academic
pressure, peer group influence and increased popularity and
availability of substances. Understanding the pattern and
circumstances leading to substance abuse will help to go
for appropriate interventions to protect the young adults
from substance abuse. Aims and Objectives: To find out
the prevalence and causes of substance abuse among
undergraduate students of three medical colleges of
Bhubaneswar. Materials and methods: All the undergraduate
students of the three colleges present on the day of survey
(1188) were included in the study; data was collected using
a pre-tested structured questionnaire. Compilation and
analysis of data was done subsequently using proportion
and chi square test as statistical test. Results: Prevalence
of substance abuse was found to be 45.87% with a male
(74.03%). Predominance. Cigarette (72%) was found to
be the most common substance of abused followed by
alcohol (68%), gutkha (24%) and drugs (23%) Staying in
hostel, non-satisfactory intra- familial relationship favoured
substance abuse. Curiosity about the substance, academic
and peer pressure, family problems were the major initiating
factors. Conclusion: Continuing use of these substances
in spite of knowledge of hazards associated with them
reflected lack of health consciousness and need of proper
health education .So, proper counselling with well planned
policies should be implemented to root out the evil of
substance abuse among the future doctors which will help
in providing better health care services to the people.
Description
Keywords
substance abuse, undergraduate medical students
Citation
Padhy Gouri Kumari, Sahu Trilochan, Das Sangeeta, Parida Sourajit. Prevalence and Causes of Substance Abuse Among Undergraduate Medical College Students. Indian Medical Gazette. 2014 Aug ; 148 (8): 276-282.