Study the awareness on health impacts of substances abuse among students at selected schools in Batticaloa Educational Zone

Abstract

Substance abuse refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs. Substance abuse is a major public health concern affecting one’s physical, mental, and social well-being. In Sri Lanka, substance abuse among school students has become a growing health problem with increasing numbers day by day. Several past studies validated that this is due to a lack of awareness on this subject, difficulty in controlling substance use by legal means, psychological stress, and peer pressure. Substance abuse can cause physical health impacts such as cardiovascular, respiratory problems, liver, and kidney problems. And infections due to sharing needles. Substance abuse can cause negative mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, behavioral change, psychiatric illnesses, and suicidal tendencies. Also, it can cause social health impacts such as financial crisis, unemployment, criminal involvement, and relationship problems. This research aimed to study the awareness of the health impacts of substance abuse among school students in the Batticaloa educational zone. A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out for one year in selected schools in the Batticaloa educational zone. A simple random sampling method was used to collect the sample. After obtaining informed written consent, data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. This collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 26. A total of 451 samples were collected from 4 schools in the Batticaloa educational zone. Among them, 248 (55%) were female and 203 (45%) were male students. The majority of the respondents (99.3%) possess a basic awareness that substance abuse can cause physical health impacts, but the majority of the participants have moderate knowledge (37%) of the detailed physical health effects of substance abuse. The majority of the participants (96.7%) possess a basic awareness that substance abuse can cause mental health impacts, but a majority of the participants (41%) lack the actual knowledge of mental health adverse effects of substance abuse. Even though the majority of the participants (97%) are aware that substance abuse is linked with negative health impacts, the majority of the participants (48%) lack the actual knowledge of the social health adverse effects of substance abuse. Overall findings show the majority (43%) of school students lack knowledge about the social health impacts of substance abuse. In conclusion, the majority of the students possess a basic awareness that substance abuse negatively affects the physical, mental, and social well-being of a person. However, the study concluded their knowledge of physical health impacts is average and their knowledge of mental and social health impacts is poor. And overall knowledge of the health impacts of substance abuse is poor. So there is a need for active and effective awareness. Programs targeting school students. Sentence abuse awareness should be incorporated into their studies and better student support services should be implemented.