Opinion of high school students of Kerman towards affecting factors on narcotics tendency (2005)

Background: Iran is the most dangerous region in the world due to high consumption and confiscation of narcotic substances and also the growth of addiction. The recognition of affecting factors on addiction requires a qualitative study on high risk people in which even the hidden aspects of addiction pathology could be investigated. Objective: To identify the viewpoint of high school students towards affecting factors on addiction tendency. Methods: This was a qualitative study performed in 2005 using brain storming in problem finding workshops on 352 students in 9 high schools, selected in stratified randomized sampling model in Kerman. The data were conceptually analyzed considering words, phrases and concepts. Findings: The most frequent fields were Finance (20.1%), Family (19.1%) and Relationships (14.8%) among those phrases like youth high pocket money of rich family, contraband commerce as an easy job and abuse of children in drug consignment were new concepts cited in relation to earlier fields. Categories such as Knowledge, Attitudes, Multimedia and Education were found in 8.9, 8.9, 7.9, 6, and 5.7 % of declarations, respectively. Positive attitudes, faulty knowledge of therapeutic use of opium, gathering session of noble youths and university entrance exam were among the recorded phrases cited in recent categories. Other categories were seen in less than 5% of phrases. Conclusion: Considering the economic and social distortion due to the change of values, social status and personality patterns, the capacity building in augmentation of personal, social and cultural protective factors in whole population in field by addressing the internal stratus of values and attitudes are proposed.