Psychiatric symptoms, current use of tobacco, alcohol, illicit drug, and poly-substance among medical students in Eastern Turkey

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the prevalence and patterns of substance use among medical students and to examine associated psychiatric symptoms. It has been observed that depression and psychoticism scores have a significant effect on smoking, and interpersonal sensitivity-hostility-paranoid ideation scores have a significant effect on drinking. It has been shown that interpersonal sensitivity and depression scores are more predictive of mono-and poly-substance use. Revealing the relationship between tobacco, alcohol, poly-substance use, and psychiatric symptoms in the medical school sample shows the importance of practices aimed at increasing students’ awareness of their psychiatric symptoms and providing access to psychiatric services.

Keywords:

• Depression
• interpersonal sensitivity
• paranoid ideation
• psychoticism
• poly-substance use

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.