Depression, stress and drug abuse among youths

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the Depression, Stress and Drug Abuse among Youths The study had 150 respondents who were randomly selected from their places of work. Self-administered questionnaires were used in data collection process the data was analyzed using the statistical software package for social sciences (SPSS). Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient was used to determine the significance of the relationships among variables. The researchers observed and concluded that there is a significant relationship between stress and Drug abuse among adolescents (r= .297**, p= .000<0.05). The first hypothesis implying that when youths are stressed they end up involving in drug use. The results of the study indicated that there is significant relationship between stress and depression among youth (r= .606**, p= .000<0.05).Finally the study revealed there is significant a relationship between depression and Drug abuse among adolescents (r= .320, p= .027<0.05). This implies that when youths get depressed in life, they tend to resort to Drug abuse as a solution to their issues in life. Drug abuse is a significant causal factor to depression that is; Drug abuse exposes youths to social rejection and loss of control over their lives which increases their susceptibility to depressive symptoms and depression.