ABUSE OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS AMONG HIGH SCHOOL MALE STUDENTS IN EL-GABALYATE VILLAGE IN SUEZ GOVERNORATE

Abstract

The present work is a cross sectional descriptive study a1mmg at determining the prevalence, behavioral pattern and determinants of psychoactive drugs abuse among high schools students in El-Gabalyate village in Suez Governorate. The study was conducted on 224 students whom were chosen randomly from the tow high schools present in El-Gabalyate village. The students' ages ranged from 14-19 years (mean age 16.5 year). The study was carried out during September and October in the 2001/2002 academic year. Each student was asked to complete the following questionnaires: 1- A modified self-administrated questionnaires inquiring about student's socio-demographic data, knowledge and attitude towards drugs, personal experimentation with psychoactive drugs and the source of information about it. 2- Youth Self Report and 1991 Profile for ages 11-18 (YSR/11-18). According to the results of our study, the prevalence of psychoactive drugs abuse was (16%) among the studied students and the most common abused drugs were sedatives/hypnotics (66.7%), cannabis (61.1%) and anticholinergics (47.2%). Also, this study showed that peer pressure, family problems, poor scholastic performance, smoking, family history of drug abuse and presence of psychiatric comorbidity all are found to be positive correlates with abuse of psychoactive drugs among high school students. Furthermore, our study demonstrated that there is a lack of the knowledge of the students about the dangers of drugs either on the personnel level or on the community and that television and friends are the most common sources of information about drugs for the students while schools have a negligible role concerning this important problem. So, we can conclude that the problem of psychoactive drugs abuse is a prevalent problem among high school students and measures to reduce this abuse should be a priority in our community.