A study of socio-demographic profile and pattern of drug use among substance abusers attending mind care de-addiction center in Ahmedabad

Abstract

Background: Substance abuse has emerged as a global phenomenon and prevalent throughout the world in all the cultures. Abuse of alcoholic beverages and tobacco are endemic in many societies, whilst the abuse of other psychoactive substances is growing concern in India. It has major impact on physical, psychological, social and environmental aspect of life.Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out amongst 100 persons attended at Mind Care de-addiction centre, Ahmedabad during the period of 1st January to 28th February 2018 with the help of pretested semi structured questionnaire.Results: Majority of the substance abusers were males (98%) and within the age group of 31 to 45 years (46%). Out of total abusers 28% were graduate and 47% doing skilled work. Majority of study participants were married (47%), belong to joint families (92%) and belongs to socio economic class I and II (50%). Most commonly used drug was alcohol (64%), followed by tobacco (20%), cannabis (12%) and opium (4%). Majority of users started to use it for social reasons (33%) and stress (26%). They got it for the first time from friends in 62% cases and 36% got by themselves. Health related changes were experienced in more than 50% of cases. Out of them, 84% feel improvement after visiting the centre.Conclusions: Drug use pattern is ever changing and has emerged as a global burden as it causes serious public health problems. There is a felt need for the assessment of the evolving trends of substance abuse. And suitable interventions for primary prevention should be considered.

Epidemiological Correlates of Substance Abuse Among In-Facility Clients of De-addiction and Rehabilitation Centres of District Dehradun: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Corroborative to our findings, both Majumder et al [12] and Rather et al [16] reported that the majority of participants in their respective studies were never married. Contrary to this, Gupta et al [11], Mohan C et al [17], Mohan A et al [18], Prajapati et al [19], and Singh et al [8] reported that drug abuse was more prevalent among married male participants. Randhawa et al reported that an approximately equal number of patients were either married (53.21%) or single (46.79%) [14].…”

“…The most common substance abused by the clients in the study (Figure 1) was alcohol (74%) followed by tobacco (mainly smoking -71.4%), opioids (46.8%), and cannabis (40.3%), respectively. Prajapati et al [19], Venkatesan et al [26], and Kadri et al [10] in their respective studies conducted in comparable but different settings reported that alcohol was the most common substance abused by patients admitted to drug deaddiction and rehabilitation centers and polysubstance dependence showing an increasing trend. Prajapati et al [19], also reported that consumption of traditional drugs like opium and cannabis was remarkably low as compared to alcohol and tobacco.…”

Sociodemographic and clinical profile of drug treatment seekers attending the State Psychiatric Hospital and Drug De-addiction Center at Agartala, Tripura

“…The majority of the substance users were males (99.0%), which are also consistent with the studies of Prajapati et al .,[ 8 ] Rather et al .,[ 9 ] and Arora et al . [ 10 ] which stated that substance users are more likely to be male.…”

Sociodemographic profile and pattern of substance abusers: A retrospective study to unveil the public health problem of Punjab

“…Single individuals have to face the stresses of life without the long-term support provided by marriage, which makes them to drug abuse. Majority (47%) of the patients in a study by Prajapati et al [ 8 ] were married whereas Pandey et al [ 9 ] and Kapse et al [ 10 ] reported maximum patients in their study were single. Most of the patients in our study were self-employed (47.2%) followed by unemployed (26.5%), which is in line with the findings of Pande et al [ 9 ] This might be explained by the fact that the individuals engaged in business are at high risk of drug abuse as their occupation demands more socializing as compared to other employments.…”