Social Demographic Factors Associated with Drug Abuse Among Undergraduates in Ekiti State

This study examined social demographic factors associated with drug abuse among undergraduates in Ekiti State. Specifically, the study examined the level of knowledge on drug abuse expressed by university undergraduate students; level of drug abuse among university undergraduate students; and common drugs known as expressed by university undergraduate students. The research design adopted for this study was a descriptive survey. The population of this study consisted of all the students of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, while the sample was 200 undergraduate students drawn from seven faculties. The respondents were randomly selected from seven faculties. A self-designed constructed questionnaire tagged “Drug Abuse Questionnaire (DAQ)” was used to collect relevant data for the study. The instrument consisted of five sections namely: Sections A, B, C, D, and E. The validity methods used were face and content validity. The items in the Questionnaire were presented to experts in the fields of Tests and Measurement, Social Studies Education and Guidance & Counselling. The reliability of the instrument was estimated through test re-test method. A co-efficient value of 0.88 was obtained which was considered statistically high to make the instrument reliable. The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents have a high knowledge of drug abuse while only few engage in drug abuse. In addition, peer influence was related to drug abuse among undergraduates but family structure was not related to drug abuse. It was further revealed that male students have higher prevalence of drug abuse than female students despite having similar knowledge of drug abuse. It was recommended among others that discipline should be put in-place by university management to curb drug abuse among undergraduates.