Prevalence of drug abuse among the student of Birjand Universities (2003)

Tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse is one of the greatest complications in the society which causes waste of power, energy as well as financial and human assets. In this case, there are a number of factors that are important and influential such as genetics, critical period of adolescence, family affairs, friends and social affairs, immigration, industrial development, etc. Since the involvement of the youth, the educated, and the future makers drastically increases anxieties in the society, the present study was conducted aiming to assess the prevalence of drug abuse, tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking and other narcotics abuse among the students.

In this descriptive study, 870 students from Birjand Universities (Medical Sciences, Birjand and Azad Universities) in different courses were randomly selected. Sampling was done by cluster method according to the number of students in each university. Data collecting tool was a questionnaire that was developed in two parts and its validity was confirmed by content validity method. The first part contained demographic information and the second part included questions about drug abuse, background of addiction in the family, kind of addiction, first material used, age of beginning, motive, abuse, etc. The collected data was reported using descriptive statistics and distribution frequency tables of SPSS software.

Results showed that 61.5% of the subjects had no background of drug abuse and cigarette smoking. The most frequent abuses were: smoking cigarette (31.5%), alcohol (5.7%), hashish (1%) and opium (0.3%). Age of beginning in 43.5% of cases was under 20, and in 60.9% of cases offers from friends were reported. In 44.5% beginning of abuse was reported in friendly parties. 58.2% of the abusers were male.

Regarding the valuable role of universities as the centers of training and educating the future- markers of the country, the existence of drugs abuse among students is dramatically alarming. Therefore, the need for high enterprise of the authorities in root findings and reducing the prevalence of this destructive catastrophe is obviously observed.