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A STUDY OF DRUGS USE AWARENESS AMONG STUDENTS IN KENYA

Page 17 A STUDY OF DRUGS USE AWARENESS AMONG STUDENTS IN KENYA Martin Ogutu, Evans Vidija Sagwa, Vidija Evans Kenya Medical Training College-Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya 2 Kenya Medical Training College-Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya 3 Kenya Medical Training College-Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya _ *Corresponding Author: Martin Ogutu Article Received: 17-06-19 Accepted: 28-09-19 Published: 05-10-19


INTRODUCTION
The term "mental health literacy" (MHL) is about beliefs and knowledge about mental disorder which aid recognition, management or prevention about something. MHL is about understanding some disorder, understanding when and how to search suitable mental health information, and related causes and risk factor-based knowledge. It also consists of understanding of healthrelated information, risk factors, self-treatments, and seeking professional help [1,2] The college life time is a transitional stage among individuals' development and also contains high risk for initiating substance use. It is estimated that globally, about 1.2 billion individuals are victims of substance abuse. At global level, there is increase in use of addictive substance use since now these substances are easily available and mostly individuals adopt using these because of poor company. Chatterjee et al. [3] stated that the use of substance among university level student is increasing across the world. Common factors leading to this trend include easily availability, desire to be popular rapidly, poor role model, pressure from peer group and experimentation behavior leading to this trend. There is trend of using substance all over the world and this trend is more concentrated among university and college level students [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] The alarming facto is that a lot of time, college and university level students and the health professionals have poor knowledge of the negative effects of harmful effects of substance usage [12,13,14,15,16,17]. Studies conducted in this domain shows that the substance usage is facilitated because of poor knowledge about its effects [18,19,20,21] Objective The objective of the study are as follows; • To measure the mental health literacy (knowledge and attitude about substance use) among medical college students in a Kenyan medical college.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The participants of the study are medical college students in their second, third, and final years studying medical degree program. The first-year student was excluded from the study. We adopted questionnaire named 'Knowledge and Attitude Addiction Questionnaire for Adolescent (KAAQA)' [14]. It is a self-reported survey which is used to measure knowledge about substance use and its effects. The study nature is cross-sectional. The questionnaire consists of 31 statements where individuals are required to answer on dichotomous scale of yes or no. We took informed consent from all participants. The questionnaire was administered on individual basis and through physical distribution and collection back on same day.

Population and Sampling
For this study, the population represent all medical students, however, we selected only one medical college which is a government-based college in the city of Nairobi, Kenya. We used convenience non-random sampling for data collection.

Statistical Analysis
We collected data from participants and entered in SPSS version 21. Analysis included frequencies, mean, standard deviation, chi-square test for comparison purpose.

Discussion
Individuals may start using drugs during the college life mainly due to the immature mind, lack of understanding, and influenced by peers. The misconception is that use of substance will help them overcoming some negative things such as stress [22]. It is important to develop suitable strategy to curb substance use among college and university students since it is at this stage where individuals are at risk of start using substance [23] We found that students we surveyed were mostly aware of the harmful effects of substance such as cancer, liver damage, and throat infections [20,24]. The college student major source of information are friends, teachers, parents, and media [4,14,24,25]. An alarming finding is that most students reported higher risk of substance use due to the peer pressure or staying with induvial who take substances. However, positive sign is that mostly students reported that they are able to say no or like to avoid substance use as they have good knowledge about the negative effects of substance use. Individuals who had personal experience of someone 'with a substance use problem' reported that they had negative attitude [12,17]. In this study minority of students agreed for taking any substance by themselves (14.8%) or by their family members (27.7%) and friends (34.1%) which was similar to another study [20]. Prevention based awareness programs are important to decrease demand by informing students about the relative risks of dependence on various substances based on current knowledge of these risks. As the substance use usually begins after the age of 12 and rises with the increased age, therefore, the preventive substance use disorder education should begin in early adolescence which can deter or delay substance use through changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior [26,27,28,29,30] Adolescent substance use education must meet the needs of those not taking any substance as well as those experiencing initial substance exposures. Education provided at early age is important in modifying students' responses in substance use situations and in the later age it is most meaningful [27]. Prevention programs should also be targeted to an individual's substance specific educational needs [26,28] Comprehensive approaches that address behavioral, emotional, and environmental factors are more effective in eliciting long term effects [26,27,28,29,30].

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION
The conclusion of the study is that among the medical students surveyed, majority of students reported higher risk of substance use due to the staying with such individuals. Majority of students agreed that if they take substance home, it will also be used by some family members. Majority of individuals reported that there is someone in their circle who is using substances. However, it can also be concluded that medical students are aware of the negative effects of substance use Recommendation Our first recommendation is that there is need for development of suitable awareness program for medical college students in order to reduce the risk of substance use among these individuals.

Limitation
The limitation of the study includes small sample size, single focus of medical college students, single city based sample, and self-reported measure.