Substances use and its association with socio-demographic, family, and environment-related factors among technical and vocational education and training college students in Ataye, Ethiopia; an institution-based cross-sectional study

Wubetu et al. BMC Public Health (2020) 20:1691 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09797-w RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Substances use and its association with socio-demographic, family, and environment-related factors among technical and vocational education and training college students in Ataye, Ethiopia; an institution-based cross-sectional study Abate Dargie Wubetu1* , Sintayehu Getachew2 and Wassie Negash1 Abstract Background: Legal substances use is prevalent in Ethiopia. Substance use can have several health problems that are potentially harmful to educational performance, social issues, psychological and physical wellbeing. This study aimed to know the prevalence of lifetime and last month’s substance use and its associated factors among technical and vocational education and training College students in Ataye town. Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 1 March to last May 2019. Participants were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Data collected by using a structured and pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data collected by five trained diploma nurses with close supervision. Odds ratio with their 95% confidence interval, and p-value less than 0.05 used to declare the statistical significance of associated factors. Results: Four hundred eighty-three individuals participated in the study, which was a response rate of 94%. The prevalence of lifetime legal substance use was 32.5% (95% CI: 28.2, 36.5). The prevalence of last month’s legal substances use was 21.9% (95% CI = 18.2, 25.5). Among lifetime legal substance users, the majority (25.5%) chewed khat. The others, (19.5%) drunk alcohol, and, 15.3% smoked cigarettes in a lifetime. Lifetime cannabis and cocaine users were 2.5, and 7.2% respectively. Among last month’s legal substance users, (21.9%) chewed khat followed by alcohol drinking (16.6%), and cigarette smoking (15.3%). In the last month, 1.2 and 3.3% of students used cannabis and cocaine respectively. Multivariate logistic regression showed that being male, having a divorced family, living greater than 20 years in the town, having substance user family members, having intimate friend substance users, and easy availability of substances were independent predictors of lifetime legal substances use. (Continued on next page) * Correspondence: ; 1 Department of Nursing, College of Health Science and Medicine, Debre Berhan University, P.O. Box 445, Debre Berhan, Ethiopia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Wubetu et al. BMC Public Health (2020) 20:1691 Page 2 of 11 (Continued from previous page) Conclusions: The prevalence of last month and lifetime legal substance use at Ataye Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college students were analogous with most studies done in Ethiopia. It is advisable if the college administrators work together with town administrators to mitigate the problem including closing substance use houses around the school. Overall, Substance use among adolescents should get further emphasis to lower the prevalence. Keywords: Prevalence, Lifetime, Last month, Substance use, College students Background Substance use has the capability of affecting the state of the body and the mind by either depressing or stimulating the central nervous system or producing other biochemical harmful effects [1–3]. An estimated 5 % of the global adult population use drugs at least once in their lifetime as studied in 2015. The more worrisome fact is about 0.6% of the global adult population suffers from drug use disorders [4]. World drug report revealed that more than a quarter of a billion people use drugs globally. Roughly, almost half a million people died because of drug use in 2015, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Of those deaths, nearly 170,000 (2.7%) deaths directly associated with drug use disorders (mainly overdoses), [5]. According to the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) report, one-third of women and about ha1f of men reported drinking alcohol at some point in their lives. The proportion of legal substances use is increasing every year in both sexes. The use of tobacco increases with the age of men. There is a wide regional variation in cigarette smoking in Ethiopia [6]. Drug use is associated with adverse health consequences. Problems of substance use seem to be a rapidly growing concern globally. It is also a major threat among youth in college and university. Some of the researchers have shown that the use of drugs by school-going youth does not only decrease their academic performance; but also makes them vulnerable to crime. Furthermore, drug use exposes them to health risks among other numerous problems [7–13]. Substances use is a common phenomenon among students in Ethiopia. It has also been noted that family background, student pocket money, peer pressure, accessibility of substances, and customs of society contribute to the increased rate of substance use among college students. Most students, staffs at an institution of higher education, and youths in the community considered are at high risk of substance use, [14–20]. The problem of substance use has historically been linked to Ataye town due to the accessibility of substances. Khat use is a common phenomenon in the study area [17]. Even though such problems are one of the top health risks among college students, there are no adequate studies conducted to explore the prevalence and associated factor of a lifetime and last month’s substance use in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) college students. The findings of this study will be useful to the education bureau and school administrations to develop strategies to mitigate students’ substance use behavior. The study findings also may help curriculum developers in formulating and incorporating psy (...truncated)