Substance Abuse: Awareness and Attitude among Secondary School Students in Sapele, Nigeria

Abstract

Substance abuse is an intricate behavior seen to be most prevalent amongst young people across the world. This study assessed the awareness and attitude towards substance abuse among students from selected secondary schools within Sapele, Delta State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional study design was utilized among 315 students who gave informed consent. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data for the study from participants. Data was presented as simple percentage using descriptive statistics. The mean age of the respondents was 16.95 ± 0.09 SEM. A prevalence of substance abuse was 19.4%, which was seen more with males than the females. About 13.97% of the students had taken alcohol, 10.79% had taken tramadol, and 3.81% had taken rohypnol. School and mass media were the main sources of information on drug abuse, while peer pressure was the most predisposing influence towards substance
use. Depression and its use as a confidence booster were main reasons given for the substance use. Adolescent substance use and abuse remains an ongoing challenge with a prevalence rate of 19.4% in this study. The study emphasizes the need for implementing drug abuse information and education in schools’ curriculum.

Keywords: Adolescent, alcohol, depression, drug abuse.