A cross sectional study on magnitude and pattern of substance abuse among youth in rural India

Introduction: The United Nations, for statistical purposes, defines ‘Youth' as those persons between the age of 15 and 24 years. Approximately more than one billion youth live in the world today which contributes around 18% of the world's population. Majority (almost 85%) of the world's youth live in developing countries, with approximately 60% in Asia alone. In the last few years, due to socio-economic and political factors, there have been increasing health problems among youth: unemployment, suicide, substance abuse, sex related offences and general adjustment problems. Youth and adolescent drug abuse is one of the major areas of concern in adolescent and young people's behavior. WHO defines substance abuse as “harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs.” Substance abuse is major public health problem amongst youth. Data are scarce on pattern of substance abuse and its association with socio demographic factors. Hence current study was an attempt to find the magnitude and pattern of substance abuse among youth in rural area. Aims and Objective: To find the magnitude of substance abuse among the youth in rural area and its socio-demographic correlates. Materials and Method: The present study was a community based observational descriptive study, cross sectional in design, conducted in the field practice area of Rural Health Training Centre of Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sewagram which is located in rural central India, between November 2013 to December 2015. Field practice area of RHTC serves 27 villages catering the population of 70,000. Four villages were randomly selected from the field practice area having total population 4045. All the youth (15-24 years) were included in the study (Complete Enumeration). Out of the total 789 youth, 59 youth refused to participate. Remaining 730 youth were included in final analysis. Predesign and pretested proforma was used for data collection. Ethical consideration was taken from institutional ethical Committee. Statistical analysis: Data entry and analysis was done by using EPI-Info version 6.04 software. Chi square test was applied to obtained statistical significance wherever necessary in the study. Results: Magnitude of substance abuse among youth was found to be 44.1%. It was 79.5% in males as compared to 20.5% in females and this was found to be statistically significant (P<0.05). Smokeless tobacco was prevalent form of substance abuse (75.8%) followed by alcohol (10.9%). 25.1% of youth had started substance abuse below 10 years of age. Peer pressure was the commonest reason (42.2%) and Mass media was the commonest source of information. Substance abuse was significantly associated with educational status, socio-economic status, and youth from the joint families and not associated with marital status and caste. Conclusions: Magnitude of substance abuse was found to be 44.1%.Smokeless tobacco was the prevalent form (75.8%) followed by alcohol (10.9%). Substance abuse was significantly associated with educational status, socio-economic status, and youth from the joint families and not associated with marital status and caste.