| dc.description.abstract | This study examined the factors that influence drug and substance use among university students, taking Makerere University’s school of statistics and planning as a case study. The study was guided by six specific objectives namely; to determine the influence of students’ age on drug and substance abuse, to examine the influence of students’ gender on drug and substance abuse, to determine the influence of students’ employment status on drug and substance abuse, to examine the influence of peer pressure on drug and substance abuse, to determine the influence of student's religion on drug and substance abuse, and to examine the influence of students’ family background on drug and substance abuse. The study utilized a primary data collected from the undergraduate students at the school of statistics and planning. Simple random sampling technique was employed to sample the 113 students. A structured questionnaire consisting of closed ended questions was used to collect the required data and STATA 15.0 software was used to analyze the data. According to the result of the study, the response rate was 100 percent and 54.9 percent of the respondents were male. The study established that employed students were significantly associated with an increased odd ratio of 2.83 of being a drug and substance abusers compared to their unemployed counterparts. Students from families that embraced drug and substance abuse were significantly associated with an increased odd ratio of 1.28 of being a drug and substance abusers compared to their counterparts from families that were drug and substance free. Also, students whose peers were drug and substance abusers were significantly associated with an increased odd ratio of 1.85 of practicing drug and substance abuse compared to their colleagues without peers who were drug and substance abusers. Therefore, the study concluded that the employment status of the student, peer pressure, and family background significantly influenced on the undergraduate students’ use of drug and substance in Makerere University. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommends that further studies should seek to examine the effect of factors such as leisure time, residential status, non-compus peers, among others on the drug and substance abuse among university students. The researcher further recommends that similar study should be conducted in other tertiary institutions to establish if similar results can be obtained. | en_US |
