General satisfaction with life; a determinant of alcohol and tobacco use among men in Plateau State

Abstract

Introduction: Satisfaction with life is a subjective well-being of an individual. Alcohol and tobacco are often consumed by people of various cultures and backgrounds and for various reasons. Alcohol is an intoxicating liquid substance that is obtained from diverse sources; it is consumed for relaxation, celebration and/or socialization. Tobacco is a substance that is obtained from plant source of which products can be smoked, chewed, sucked or snuffed. It is a substance that has been classified as harmful at all levels of use because of the deleterious health effect it has. General life satisfaction could be a predictor of human behaviour, this can affect all aspects of health; physical, mental and social. Life satisfaction could be high where an individual has a good sense of wellbeing about oneself or low when a person feels inadequate and dissatisfied with life, both extremes of life satisfaction can cause individuals to act in a certain way. This study aims to assess overall life satisfaction as a determinant of alcohol and tobacco use.

Methods: Data for this study was obtained from the Nigerian Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2017 database. Data on adult males in Plateau State were extracted and variables on General satisfaction with life, alcohol and tobacco use were obtained. Analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23.0 software. Frequencies were obtained for socio demographic variables, overall life satisfaction, alcohol and tobacco use were determined. Cross tabulations were done to compare the association between overall life satisfaction and alcohol/tobacco use at a level of significance set at p≤ 0.05.

Results: A total of 558 adult males were recruited for the survey, the mean age was 27.79 ± 9.74 years. Most of the respondent 464 (83.2%) reside in rural areas. About half of them 286 (51.3%) have secondary/technical education. A total of 207 (37.1%) respondents admitted to being generally satisfied with life. One hundred and seventy-three (31%) of respondents have ever drunk alcohol and from those who drink, 35 (21%) of them drink alcohol for most days of the month. Of all the respondents that were satisfied with life, 195 (94%) consumed 2 alcoholic drinks per occasion and all of them took alcohol less than 10days in a month. There was no statistically significant association between overall life satisfaction and ingestion of alcohol. Only 40 (7.9%) of respondents have ever tried smoking cigarette with only 2 (0.4%) currently smoking cigarettes. There was no statistically significant association between overall life satisfaction and current status of cigarette smoking.

Conclusion: There is no statistically significant relationship between overall life satisfaction and alcohol/tobacco use among men in Plateau state. This finding might be attributed to the high number of missing values on variables on alcohol and tobacco use. The total response rate in some cases were less than 5% of the total respondents. If primary data can be generated for the same variables, the findings might be different from what was found in this study. There is a need for more research to be carried out on this topic.