Substance abuse prevalence and related factors to it, among students of Kermanshah University of Medical Science in 2011

Background: Substance abuse is a main abstruse related to society's health. main goal of this study is evaluation of substance abuse prevalence and related factors to it, among students of medical science university of Kermanshah.

Methods: This cross sectional study carried out on 2422 students of Kermanshah University of Medical Science, in fall, 2011. Sampling method was "simple sampling", and all students selected for evaluation without age and educational limit. Questions are include: standard criterions of substance  abuse according to DSM-IV-TR, demographic information and some related factors to substance abuse, for example familial history of substance abuse, consumer friends, educational achievement and situation of students' residence. For data analysing, Stata 8 software, descriptive statistics and Chi-2 test are used.

Results: Substance abuse prevalence among students was 3.18%, which 72.37% of them were male and 27.63% of them were female. The highest prevalence of substance abuse was in students of professional doctoral (6.34%) and the lowest prevalence was in M.Sc. students (0%). Substance abuse was more prevalent among married persons in compare with single persons. Prevalence of substance abuse among students who were living in single houses, was greater than whose students were living in dormitories or with family (17.54% in comparison with 2.61%, 2.41%). There was a meaningful relationship between familial history of substance abuse and existing substance abusers friends with substance abuse among students (P<0.001).

Conclusion: The low prevalence of substance abuse in this study in compare to existing statistics, can attribute to lack of students' reports.