paper presentation on substance abuse

1. STUDY OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE
AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS
Authors: Dr. S.Rajini,
Dr. C. Kameshvell,
V. MuraliPrasath,
V. Tamilselvi

2. JUSTIFICATION:
• Substance abuse is found worldwide
including among medical students. We
carried out this study to estimate the
prevalence of substance abuse among
medical students studying in private
medical college in Southern part of
India.
• Hence our study is planned in this
direction.

3. INTRODUCTION:
• Substance abuse and its associated
problems are a global concern.
• A recent WHO estimate shows a burden
of worldwide psychoactive substance
use of around 2 billion alcohol uses, 1.3
billion smokers and 185 million drug
users.
• The doctors are vulnerable to substance
abuse/addiction due their ready
accessibility to the substance of abuse.

4. What makes them to
do so???

5. AIMS & OBJECTIVE:
• To study the prevalence,
duration, reasons and type
of drug abuse among
medical students.

6. MATERIALS AND METHODS:

7. • A cross sectional study among 300 randomly
selected medical students (including 50 girls’
students) was carried out in private medical
college during August to September 2015.
• After seeking administrative approval and
verbal consent of the participants, a pretested
questionnaire was prepared, distributed and
data were collected from the students (1st
year to 5th year).
• Questionnaire was designed to elicit
information on the use of cigarettes, alcohol,
illegal purchase of drugs as well as reasons
and age at first use.

8. RESULTS:
86%
14%
NO. OF STUDENTS
MALE
FEMALE

9. 37%
37%
14%
6%
6%
YEAR OF STUDENTS
I st year
2nd year
3 rd year
4th year
CRRI

10. 87%
13%
PLACE OF STAY
HOSTLER
DAY SCHOLAR

11. 13%
8%
12%
66%
PARENT'S EDUCATION
UPTO XII
UNEDUCATED
DOCTORS AND
PARAMEDICS
GRADUATES

12. 112
231
6
64
ALCOHOL SMOKE DRUGS NON USERS
0
50
100
150
200
250
TYPE OF SUBSTANCE
TYPE OF SUBSTANCE

13. 36%
40%
17%
7%
REASON FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE
FOR FUN
EXPERIMENTATION
STRESS RELIEF
FORCED BY FRIENDS
OR OTHERS

14. 26
129
51
1.2
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
< 6 MONTHS 6 MONTHS - 1
YEAR
1-5 YEARS >5 YEARS
DURATION
SMOKE
SMOKE

15. DURATION
13
102
21
1.2
<6 MONTHS 6 MONTHS- 1
YEAR
1-5 YEAR >5 YEARS
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
ALCOHOL
ALCOHOL

16. DURATION
3 3
0 0
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
<6MONTHS 6MONTHS-1 YEAR 1-5YEARS >5 YEARS
DRUGS
DRUGS

17. FEEL AFTER SUBSTANCE ABUSE
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
STRESS RELIEF SATISFACTION NOTHING
94
20
100
19
13
56
4 4 2
SMOKE ALCOHOL DRUGS

18. SIGNIFICANCE

19. CONCLUSION
• The problem of substance abusers
among medical students should gain
attention and it’s time to evolve on
comprehensive intervention
approach to promote a healthy and
safe life style practices.