Psychoactive Substance Use Among Psychiatric Outpatients In a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Background: Psychiatric and substance-use disorders are serious problems for the individuals who have them as well as the society as a whole. There is dearth of studies enumerating the estimates of psychoactive drug use among psychiatric outpatients in Nigeria.
Aim: This study aimed at determining lifetime and current use prevalence of psychoactive substance among psychiatric outpatients.
Methods: Subjects from the psychiatric clinic of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex were consecutively recruited for the study. Information on sociodemographic variables and drug use was obtained and data was subject to descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: Data from 130 subjects were analysed. The mean age was 39.95 years and 53.8% of subjects were males. Life time and current use prevalence of any substance were 45.4% and 22.3% respectively. Concerning specific psychoactive substance, Stimulant (26.9%) was highest in lifetime use while alcohol (13.1%) was highest in current use among respondents. Patients with Schizophrenia had the highest lifetime rate of any substance (15.4%) while patients with seizure, dementia and other disorders had the lowest rate (2.3%).
Conclusion: Stimulants and alcohol were the substances more likely to be used by the mentally ill irrespective of their diagnostic category. These observations underscore the need to further study the important relationship between these psychoactive substances and these psychiatric disorders.

Keywords: Psychoactive substance , psychiatry , outpatients