Prevalence and Patterns of Drug Abuse among Students of Tertiary Institutions in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: In recent time, there has been a rise in the use of alcohol and psychoactive substances and the associated consequences among Nigerian students in tertiary institutions. Despite being a major public health concern, there are few studies that examined prevalence of alcohol and drug use among students of different tertiary institutions at the same point in time. Method: The self-administered WHO Student Drug Use Questionnaire was used to collect data on drug use among 1233 college students from the Federal College of Education, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic and University of Agriculture all in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. Results: The lifetime prevalence of use of one or more drugs of abuse was 69.2%. The highest lifetime prevalence rates were for alcohol (34.3%), tobacco (14.4%), hypnosedatives (8.8%) and cannabis (6.2%). The majority of respondents who abused psychoactive drugs initiated the habit in primary and secondary school. Alcohol use was more common among male students and Christians. It was also associated with parental drug use, parental educational level and marital status. Conclusion: This study showed a high prevalence of drug abuse among the students. There is a need for more studies on drug use among college students with a view to mapping out appropriate preventive and intervention programmes in Nigeria.

Drug use Among Undergraduates in Maiduguri, Northeast Nigeria

“…Although this national survey did not survey for alcohol and tobacco use. In contrast, the past one-year prevalence of drug use among university students in the southwestern part of the country was higher (22.6%) than our result (13). Differences in socio-cultural characteristics of the people, and the different numbers of drugs included could be responsible for the observed differences.…”

“…Male students were more likely to use drugs compare to their female counterparts. This result is consistent with the finding previous Nigerian and Sudanese drug use studies which reported the same sexbased differences in drug use (6,13,16,21). This finding may be due to male trait and show of power often exhibited by male students which may encourage drug use.…”