Stress, social support and substance use among students of Makerere University

Abstract

The study aimed finding out the relationship between stress, social support and substance use among students of Makerere University. The study adopted a quantitative study design which was correlation in nature with a population of 80 employees. Simple random sampling technique was used to draw a sample of 66 respondents from the population. Data was collected from respondents using self-administered standard questionnaire and entered in the computer for analysis through Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software version 23. Descriptive statistics showed that (77.3 %) of the respondents were female and (22.7%) were male, majority were between 18-25 years (95.5%). Results from Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) further indicated that there was no relationship between stress and social support, (r= -.019, p=.878), However, results show that there was negative relationship between social support and substance use (r= -.963**, p=.002). Results further indicate that there was a significant positive relationship between stress and substance use (r= .663**, p=.000). Therefore, the present study provides a basis and implications for further investigation on relationship between stress, social support and substance use among students in different universities in Uganda. It was recommended that the management of Makerere University to needs to ensure that stress levels of students is reduced to reduce on substance use. This is possible through social support in terms of providing counseling services to students.