Vol. 12, Special Issue 12 (2023)

Author(s):
Madhur Katoch, Nitima and Raj Pathania

Abstract:
Substance abuse includes smoking, drinking or use of illicit drugs that often initiates during adolescent period and has a pernicious impact on an individual, family and society resulting in major public health challenges. Therefore,the present research conducted to study the prevalence differences of drug abuse on the basis of gender, govt. and private type of institute and among school and college students.The present study was conducted in five schools and five colleges in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST)” and Self-Structured Questionnaire were administered to the sample size of 500 students from both the study institutes in the age group of 12-25 years to collect data.Nearly 48.8% of youth were using single or multiple drugs. Out of that tobacco was the highly consumable drug by youth (59.8%) whether use specifically or in combination with other drugs followed by alcohol (58.7%). Extremely significant gender difference at 1% level of significance was observed with respect to tobacco, inhalants and amphetamine wherein most of the substance users were found to be boys. Highly significant difference at 5% level of significance was seen between private and government schools regarding use of tobacco (p value .011) and alcohol (p value .023).It was concluded from results that substance abuse was seen higher in males from both school as well as in college as compared to females. The use of tobacco and alcohol was found to be higher in case of govt. school students as compared to private school students, whereas cocaine prevalence was found to be more in private school students.