Pattern of Stimulant Use among Nigerian Undergraduate Students in Benin City, Nigeria.

Abstract

Stimulants are a major constituent of psychoactive substances. They cause several untoward effects; including academic difficulty which can lead to untoward consequences for students. The understanding of the pattern of use of stimulant will help in its prevention and control. Thus, this study intended to investigate life time, past year and current prevalence rates of stimulant use, age at first use of stimulant, specific type of stimulant used and reason for using stimulants. The instrument consisted of sociodemographic variables and the stimulant section of the World Health Organisation Questionnaire for Student Drug Use Survey. An item was added to determine the reason why respondents used stimulant. It was administered on 500 undergraduate students of University of Benin selected by multistage sampling technique. Life time, past year and current prevalence rates of stimulant use were 48.8%, 41.3% and 39.4% respectively. Seventy four percent of those who have ever used stimulant first did so at or less than the age of 12 years while almost 100% of those who were current users of stimulants used coffee and or kola nut. Notably, 92.2% of those who have ever used stimulant used it to keep awake to study. Therefore, efforts at curtailing the use of stimulants must start early; incorporating such strategy into primary school curriculum will be worthwhile. There is need to focus more on common stimulants like coffee and kola nut. Students need to study without using stimulants.

Keywords Pattern, stimulant, psychoactive-substance, caffeine, prevention, control