Prevalence of Psychoactive Substance use among Female Students in Ain Shams University

Abstract

Many countries around the world have established national programs for regular monitoring of the rates of substance use and abuse within their borders and how these rates change over time. In Egypt and since the 1970’s there has been a sudden increase of drug use. Illicit substance use/abuse continues to cause societal and national concern for good reasons. Several reports have been published and several local surveys have been conducted. All seem to have suffered a problem with small numbers and/or a focus on certain groups, within a community. The true prevalence of substance use and abuse in a satisfactory random sample of the whole population is still unknown. This ultimate aim requires considerable ingenuity and resources to overcome underreporting of this prevalent but illusive phenomenon. Egypt started a National Addiction Research Program as early as 1994 funded by the government and led by the Ministry of Health. The first report of the Program entitled “National Research on Addiction” was published in Arabic. It revealed that 6.2% of the population declared using substance(s) of abuse at least once.