Substance abuse behaviors among university freshmen in Iran: a latent class analysis

Abstract

OBJECTIVESSubstance abuse behaviors among university freshmen in Iran are poorly understood. This study aimed to identify, for the first time, subgroups of university freshmen in Iran on the basis of substance abuse behaviors. Moreover, it examined the effects of socio-demographic characteristics on membership in each specific subgroup.METHODSData for the study were collected cross-sectionally in December 2013 and January 2014 from 4 major cities in Iran: Tabriz, Qazvin, Karaj, and Khoramabad. A total of 5,252 first-semester freshmen were randomly selected using a proportional cluster sampling methodology. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data. Latent class analysis (LCA) was performed to identify subgroups of students on the basis of substance abuse behaviors and to examine the effects of students’ socio-demographic characteristics on membership in each specific subgroup.RESULTSThe LCA procedure identified 3 latent classes: the healthy group; the hookah experimenter group; and the unhealthy group. Approximately 82.8, 16.1, and 2.1% of students were classified into the healthy, hookah experimenter, and unhealthy groups, respectively. Older age, being male, and having a family member or a close friend who smoked increased the risk of membership in classes 2 and 3, compared to class 1.CONCLUSIONSApproximately 2.1% of freshmen exhibited unhealthy substance abuse behaviors. In addition, we found that older age, being male, and having a close friend or family member who smoked may serve as risk factors for substance abuse behaviors.

Lifestyle behaviors among undergraduate nursing students: A latent class analysis

“…Moreover, high alcohol consumption is common among university students, especially those in their senior year (Davoren et al, 2018;Kabir et al, 2018;Pires et al, 2015). Clearly, university students are a group that requires special attention regarding health promotion, especially to a healthy lifestyle.…”

“…Understanding patterns of unhealthy behaviors and how they influence the health risk of undergraduate students would be useful for health promotion interventions. Rather than identifying single risky behaviors, it would be more helpful to intervention efforts to identify patterns of clustered behaviors that characterize subgroups with higher lifestyle risks (Kabir et al, 2018;Nazar et al, 2019;Sanscartier, Edgerton, & Roberts, 2018).…”

“…LCA is often used in research to identify high-risk behavior patterns in the general populations (Mathur et al, 2014;Patrão, Almeida, Alvim, Chor, & Aquino, 2018;Wienert, Kuhlmann, Storm, Reinwand, & Lippke, 2018). Several studies have examined undergraduate students from different programs and universities around the world, but do not specify whether nursing students were included (Afrashteh, Ghaem, & Abbasi-Ghahramanloo, 2017;Davoren et al, 2018;El Ansari & Berg-Beckhoff, 2017;Kabir et al, 2018;Laska et al, 2009;Luo, Agley, Hendryx, Gassman, & Lohrmann, 2015;Mathur et al, 2014;Nazar et al, 2019;Sanscartier et al, 2018).…”

“…Much of the research on university students using LCA analyses identified unhealthy behaviors or conditions that included cigarette smoking (Afrashteh et al, 2017;Kabir et al, 2018) and alcohol and drug consumption (Davoren et al, 2018). It is important to recognize that health risks are not distributed equally and separately among the students; rather, they tend to occur in clusters in definite population subgroups (Almutairi et al, 2018;Torquato et al, 2016).…”

“…Several studies have investigated the prevalence of one or more modifiable health risks among nursing students (Pires, Mussi, Souza, Silva, & Santos, 2015;Polat, Özen, Kahraman, & Bostanoğlu, 2016;Torquato et al, 2016). Others studies focus on university students in fields that include medicine, engineering, and economics (Alfhaid et al, 2017;Almutairi et al, 2018;Davoren, Dahly, Shiely, & Perry, 2018;Kabir et al, 2018) or investigated the prevalence of these behaviors in different professional careers (Borle et al, 2017;Torquato et al, 2016). In addition, other health research studies focus on university students because often lifestyle habits adopted as a university student continue after graduation (Deasy, Coughlan, Pironom, Jourdan, & Mcnamara, 2015;Han, Kim, Lee, & Lim, 2019;Mathur, Stigler, Lust, & Laska, 2014).…”