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).