Self-esteem, depression and substance abuse among School going adolescents
Abstract
School going adolescents have low levels of self-esteem which leads into depression among
these adolescents society. The use of alcohol, tobacco, various drugs is a wide spread
phenomenon among school going adolescents. The abuse of psychoactive drugs among
adolescents is an issue which needs serious attention by the nation and authorities. The aim
of the study was to examine the relationship between self-esteem, depression and Substance
abuse among school going adolescents, Rubaga division. The study targeted 100
adolescents, 30 males and 60 females aged 13-20 years of age and a qualitative research
design; correlational method was adopted to establish the relationship between the variables.
A constructed self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the 90
respondents. Collected data was analyzed using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS
Version, 23) and Pearson Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to test the level of significance
of the hypotheses. Results showed that there is a significant relationship between self-esteem and
depression(r=.330**, p<0.01), as well as depression and Substance Abuse among
adolescents (r=0.167**, p<0.01), Results also revealed that self-esteem is significantly
related to Substance Abuse among adolescents (r=.402**, p<0.01).