Knowledge and attitude of University students about ecstasy in Gorgan - Iran

The compound of MDMA or 3,4methyl deoxy met amphetamine, so called ecstasy, is a new narcotice compound. Ecstasy tablets have a temporary exciting and deteriorating side effects. This study was done to determine the knowledge and attitude of University students about ecstasy tablets in Gorgan, Iran. This descriptive - analytic study was done on 300 university students in Gorgan during 2006. The tools of data collection were questionnaire. This questionnaire developed by authors, consists of demographic, knowledge and attitude questions respectively. The data were analized by SPSS software and Kruskal- Wallis and Mann- Whitney tests. 3% of subjects had previous usage of ecstasy. The 27.3% of students had poor knowledge about ecstasy, also 52.3% and 12.7% of students had middle and high knowledge about ecstasy respectivly. There was significant relation between knowledge and attitude with educational level, family income, parents occupation and previous usage of ecstasy (P<0.05). But there was not any relation between knowledge and attitude and age, gender, and filed of education and source of information enquiry. There was a possitive correlation between knowledge and attitude of students (P<0.001, r=0.243). This study showed that knowledge and attitude of University students about ecstasy is low. Therefore educational programs about ecstasy is nessecery to increase the knowledge and attitude of university students.