Substance use and associated factors among high School students in shashamene town, oromiya region, South east Ethiopia

Abstract

ntroduction: The use of substances such as alcohol, khat leaves and tobacco have long been recognized as one of the leading causes of human suffering and become one of the rising major public health and socio-economic problems worldwide. Even though substances use occurs in all segments of all societies, it is more spreading in an alarming rate among the young generation. Objective: To assess substance use and associated factors among high school students of ShahsemenTown. Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 606 randomly selected high school students in Shashemene Town, Southeast Ethiopia, in April 2016. The sample size was calculated by a single population proportion formula and allocated proportionally for the schools based on the number of students. A pretested structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regressions were employed to identify the predictors of substance uses. Result: The overall prevalence of substance use among the respondents was 377(62.2%). The life time prevalence of cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking ,and khat chewing, among the study participants were 16.7%, 34.8% ,and 29.7% respectively. Sexes of the respondents, substance uses status of the respondents‘ father, mother, and friends had significantly associated with substance uses status of the respondents. Respondents whose father, mother, and friend use substances were seven times (AOR [95% CI] 7.08 [3.21-15.61]), sixteen times (AOR [95% CI] 16.89 [4.77-59.84]), and four times (AOR [95% CI] 4.38 [1.89-10.13]) more likely to use substances respectively compared to the respondents father, mother, and friend who were not use substances. On the other hands, currently living alone, current town residence, grade level in the school, religion of the respondents and having monthly pocket money were also significantly associated with substance uses status of the respondents. Conclusion: Respondents whose family uses one or more substances were more likely use substances. Respondents whose best friend uses substances were more prone to practice substance uses. Family and friends of the respondents were the predicting factors for them to practice substance use or not. Hence, school principals, town education office and health office need to tackle substance uses of the respondents through focusing the identified factors.