Drug use and its correlated factors among university students in Tehran

ABSTRACT

Objective

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of lifetime, last year, and last month use of illicit drugs and associated factors among the first to fourth-year students at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

Method

Sampling method was multi-stage cluster sampling. Anonymous self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 1050 students. We provided prevalence of lifetime, last 12 months, last month, and daily use for the main classes of drugs. Using the bivariate and multivariate logistic regression model, we evaluated correlated factors of any drug use in the past 12 months.

Results

Overall, 945 students participated in this study. A total of 6.6% reported any illicit drug use in the past 12 months (11.2% among males vs. 3.1% among females) Cannabis was the most used drug in the past year, reported by 4.9% of the participants, followed by methylphenidate (2.9%). There was an association between illicit drug use in the past 12 months with smoking cigarettes and using alcohol in the past 12 months and drug use among friends or family members.

Conclusions

The prevalence of drug use among the students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences has increased compared to similar previous studies, which call for preventive measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical students
• substance use
• epidemiology
• young population
• high-risk behavior

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank everyone who participated in or contributed to this study.

Authors’ contributions

AR and BSH conceived and designed the study and revised the article. SD and SO collected the Data. SHB analyzed the Data. MA and JGH oversaw the analysis. SD wrote the manuscript.

Consent for publication

All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to the Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, a Policy journal.

Ethical approval and consent to participate

The Institutional Ethical Review Board approved the study protocol in TUMS (ethics code: IR.TUMS.MEDICINE.REC.1397.146).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data collected and analyzed in this study are included in this article.

Additional information

Funding

The study was conducted as a dissertation project of S.D. and S.O. The Tehran University of Medical Sciences supported it.