Prevalence of substance abuse among university students: a case study of students residing in Mitchel Hall, Makerere University

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the prevalence of substance abuse among university students: a case study of Mitchell hall, Makerere University. It examined the factors leading to substance abuse, the most prevalent substances among the students and the effect of demographic factors of substance abuse patterns. The study used the descriptive research design and adapted cross sectional survey design because it was conducted across participants over a short period of time. An overall sample size was 223 participants but due to a number of constraints, a total of 156 participants were used. The study adopted convenience sampling and simple random sampling where by the researcher selected Mitchell hall as it was convenient to him and the participants for the survey were then selected randomly. The study used self-administered questionnaires to collect data. To ensure consistency in the study, the researcher used reliability and validity of instruments, data was processed to ascertain the accuracy, consistency, uniformity, proper arrangement and completeness of data, the researcher used the computer for data entry, editing (cleaning), data coding (categorization), data summarization, data presentation took from frequency tables and pie charts and analyzed data using SPSS. The study discovered that the level of alcohol intake among the students is alarming as it was discovered that 3 in every 4 students take alcohol, it was also discovered that the most prevalent recreational drug is marijuana followed by weed cookies and khat (miraa) then lastly shisha. The biggest factor influencing drug usage is peer pressure seconded by anxiety and lastly academic stress. The study also found out that there is no significant relationship between students’ major and alcohol intake.