Substance Use, Emerging Substances and Poly Drug Use among Undergraduate Students in Universities in Kenya
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Date
2021-12-31
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Journal of Alcohol & Drug Abuse
Abstract
There is an increase in the use of substances
and the peak levels of substance use are seen
among young people aged between 18-25.
Substance use presents a barrier to learning, it
impairs cognitive ability and distorts judgment.
There is limited information on the magnitude
of substance use and a countrywide study has
not been conducted to determine the extent of
substance use, emerging substances and poly
drug use among undergraduate students in
Kenya. The purpose of this study was to determine
the extent of substance use, emerging substances
and poly drug use among the undergraduates in
Kenya. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design
was used for this study. The target population
was 451,081 undergraduate students, where
390,456 were in public and 60,625 in private
chartered universities. The sample size was 1,500
participants selected from seven public and five
private universities, from ten counties across the
country. A World Health Organization (WHO)
questionnaire - Alcohol, Smoking and Substance
Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) was used
to determine the extent of substance use, poly
drug use and emerging substances among the
undergraduate students. The key substances were
alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and shisha among
others. The findings revealed prevalence of lifetime
substance use of 48.6% and the prevalence of
current use of 37.9%. Public universities (M=.48,
SD= .50) had higher prevalence of current use
than private universities (M=.26, SD= .43) with
t (1435) = 8.94, p<.05. Alcohol was the most
commonly used substance and shisha was an
emerging substance. Poly drug use was reported
at 162 (11.3%) among the current users. The
prevalence of substance use is high. There is a
need for universities to develop and implement
interventions for the emerging substances and
poly drug use to mitigate the potential risk of
developing substance use disorders.
Description
Keywords
Substance use, Lifetime use, Current use, Emerging substances, Poly drug use