Substance abuse amongst the medical graduate students in a developing country.
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Date
2016-01
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Abstract
Background & objectives: Substance abuse is found worldwide including among students. We carried out this study to estimate the prevalence of substance abuse among medical student studying in a medical college in north India.
Methods: Using a validated questionnaire a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 230 undergraduate and postgraduate medical students in a private medical college.
Results: The prevalence of substance abuse was 20.43 per cent (47/230) among medical students.
An increase in substance abuse was observed in the latter years of medical education. A total of 43 of 47 (91.7%) students using these substances were aware of the ill effects. The most common reasons for substance use were relief from psychological stress (34/47, 72.4%) and occasional celebration (34/47, 72.4%). Of the 47 substance users, 28 (59.6%) made past attempts to quit the substance abuse.
Interpretation & conclusions: Nearly one-fifth of medical students abuse at least one substance despite knowing the ill effects with the main predisposing factor being the psychological stress.
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Keywords
Psychological stress, students, substance abuse
Citation
Arora A, Kannan S, Gowri S, Choudhary S, Sudarasanan S, Khosla P P. Substance abuse amongst the medical graduate students in a developing country. Indian Journal of Medical Research. 2016 Jan; 143(1): 101-103.