Substance Abuse Issues among University Undergraduates in Enugu State

Abstract

The study focused on substance abuse issues among university undergraduates in Enugu State. Specifically, the study determined; commonly abused substances among university undergraduates in Enugu state and reasons for substance abuse among university undergraduates in Enugu state. The study adopted a survey research design. The population for this study was 112,475 students from the six universities in Enugu State. Questionnaire was used for data collection. Mean, standard deviation, percentages were employed for data analysis. Results of the study show 11 commonly abused substances among university undergraduates. These include, alcohol 330(96.2%), cigarettes 208(60.6%), codeine (lean, coder, etc) 331(96.5%), caffeine (in form of coffee) 308(89.8%), tramadol 299(87.2%), and others. Thirteen (13) reasons for substance abuse among university undergraduates were also identified. These include; means of

feeling good or high 2.91, to be like my friends (̅X = 3.04), to feel like an adult (̅X = 3.08), boredom (̅X = 2.82), form of social celebration (̅X = 3.14), to forget academic problems (̅X = 3.28), to reduce tension from academic work (̅X = 3.55), curiosity to find out the effectivesness of a particular drug (̅X = 3.92),       easy acecess to psychoactive substances (̅X = 3.51), and others. Based on these findings, the study recommended among others, that students should be encouraged to engage in gainful extra-curricular activities to keep them occupied so and prevent involvement in ill practices such as substance abuse; and the university administration should work with the appropriate authorities to identify the different sources of abused substances so as to shut down any existing drug houses to close to the institutions limit access of undergraduates to such sources.