Substance use and associated factors among youth of jimma town, oromia regional state, south west Ethiopia: mixed methods approach

Abstract

Background: Substance use refers to use of psychoactive substances such as alcohol, cigarette, khat and illicit drugs. Globally substance use such as alcohol, cigarette, and khat leaves (Cathaedulis) have become a major public health concern with accompanying socio-economic problems. Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess prevalence of substance use (including Cigarette use, Alcohol use and Khat use) and associated factors among youth in Jimma town. Methods: This study was conducted in Jimma Town through mixed-methods research approach including community based cross-sectional survey and semi-structured interviews. A total of 570 youth was selected as a sample sizes for the quantitative part of the survey and 10 in-depth interviews was conducted for the qualitative study. Data was collected by using a semi-structured survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews guide. The collected data were entered to Epi-data manager version 4.4.1 and exported to statistical package for social science version 21.0 for analysis of quantitative data. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with substance use. ATLAS.ti version 7 was employed for analysis of qualitative data. Then findings and direct quotations of study participants were presented in results part with thick description to triangulate with quantitative findings. Results: The overall substance use among respondent was 310(54.7%). Life time prevalence of cigarette, khat and alcohol are 18.0%, 31.6% and 46.9% respectively. The factors associated with cigarette use were those siblings of respondents that use substance (AOR, 2.5 95%CI (1.31-4.87)), friends smoke cigarette compare to chew khat (AOR, 3.7 95%CI (1.506-8.900)), subjective norm factors (AOR, 1.2 95%CI (1.02- 1.30)) and perceived benefit on substance use (AOR, 1.42 95%CI (1.16-1.73)). Factors associated with Alcohol use among respondents were those fathers that drink alcohol compare to those whose fathers’ chew khat (AOR, 5.6 95%CI (2.65-11.93)), and youth who highly perceived substance use as important (AOR, 1.7 95%CI (1.448-2.032)). Factors that influenced Khat use were male versus female respondents (AOR 8.3 95%CI (4.24-16.36)), those respondents’ that have siblings in use substance versus those sibling’s that did not use khat (AOR, 3.8 95%CI (2.15-6.57)), out–of–school youth compare to in-school (AOR, 3.35 95%CI (1.99- 5.64)) and highly influenced youth by the subjective norms to smoke cigarette versus chew khat (AOR, 1.22 95%CI. (1.06-1.39) Concussion: The study findings indicated that substance use prevalence is high among youth of Jimma town. The factors associated with cigarette use are siblings of respondents that use substance, friends smoke cigarette, subjective norm factors and perceived benefit on substance use. Factors associated with Alcohol use are those fathers that drink alcohol and youth who highly perceived substance use as important and also factors that influence Khat use were male gender, siblings in use substance, out-of–school youth and subjective norms factors