ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Substance/Drug abuse remains a public health concern globally. The objectives of this study were to determine the level of knowledge, perception, prevalence and factors associated with substance/drug abuse amongst adolescents in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State.
METHODOLOGY: This study was conducted in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State using an analytical cross-sectional study design. Seven hundred and forty-eight adolescents in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State who gave their consent participated in this study. The respondents were selected using multistage sampling technique. Instrument for data collection was an interviewer administered questionnaire. Data was analyzed using the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows, version 26.0 software (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp USA) and level of significance was set at p<0.05.
RESULTS: Almost all the respondents 737 (98.9%) were aware of the harmful effects of substance/drug abuse. However, majority of the respondents 417 (56.0%) had poor knowledge of substance/drug abuse. Family type (p=0.047, AOR: 1.50 (95% CI: 1.01– 28.90) had significant association with level of knowledge of substance/drug abuse. In addition, more than half 593 (79.6%) of the adolescents had poor perception to substance/drug abuse. Age (p=0.025), sex (p=0.013), family type (p=0.015), and mother’s education (p=0.041), were statistically significant with perception to substance/drug abuse. The prevalence rate of substance/drug abuse in this study was 27.9%. Parental supervision and parents’ attitude to enforcement of rules were identified as factors associated with substance/drug abuse.
CONCLUSION: Majority of the participants had poor knowledge and poor perception of substance/drug abuse.
The overall prevalence of drug abuse found among the participants was high with alcohol reported by the respondents as the most commonly abused substance and parental supervision and parents’ attitude to enforcement of rules was identified as factors associated with substance/drug abuse.
Parents should be intentional about raising adolescents as well as engage in conversations with them in order to get them comfortable enough to open up about vices like substance/drug abuse which they may be considering engaging in.
