Prevalence and associated factors of substance abuse among undergradguate regular studentes

Psychoactive substances are any chemical stuff which alters physical and psychological functioning when they are ingested. Substance abuse refers to maladaptive patterns of substance use that result in negative consequences. It is becoming a serious public health problem affecting 190 million people all over the world and majority of them are youth. A worldwide burden of impairment attributable to alcohol and tobacco are 5.4 and3.7% ; cause for death of 2.5 and 6 million people each year respectively. The objective of this study was to assess prevalence and associated factors of psychoactive substances among students of Adigrat University, Ethiopia. A cross sectional study design was employed: Four hundred fifty six participants were involved. Study subjects were selected using multistage sampling techniques. The data was collected from May 1-7, 2016 with the help of self-administer questionnaire. Result revealed that out of 456 participants 298(65.4%) were males. The magnitude of poly substance abuse was 3.1%. The magnitudes of abused substances were alcohol (16.2 %) followed by khat (11.4%) and Tobacco (8.3%). It was concluded that significant number of students abuse substance and some of them abuse khat, alcohol and cigarette simultaneously. Maladaptive use of a single substance increases the likelihood of abusing other substances.