Substance Abuse and Associated Factors among Female Students in Jigjiga University, Eastern Ethiopia

The use of drugs such as alcohol, khat, and tobacco has become one of the increasingly serious public health and socioeconomic concerns globally. Young people at higher learning institutions are a particularly susceptible demographic in terms of drug usage. In fact, the problem is considered to be on the rise, and has become a cause of concern for different parties. However, there is a little evidence on the extent of drug misuse and related variables among University students in, Ethiopia which compelled this study to be undertaken. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of drug use and related variables among female students in Jigjiga University. Institution based cross sectional research design was conducted. Multi stage sampling approach was utilized. List of all female students from the designated departments were the sampling frame. Data were obtained using self-given questionnaire by six data collecting facilitators. The obtained data loaded into Epi Data version 3.1 and then exported to SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was done to discover variables linked with the drug usage. Lifetime drug usage was determined to be 48.7 percent. However, the most often used substances were alcohol (44.7 percent) khat (12.5 percent ), cigarettes (7.7 percent ), and other illegal drugs (6.4 percent ). Lifetime substance use was positively associated with off campus residence [(AOR= 1.702, 95 percent CI: (2.763, 3.798)], having boyfriend [(AOR= 2.299, 95 percent CI: (1.063, 4.970))], sexually violated [(AOR= 7.525, 95 percent CI: (3.316, 17.077))], and witness parental violence during childhood [(AOR=2.690, 95 percent CI: (1.318, 5.487)]. Significant number of students abuse drug with some proportion of Students’ abuse khat, alcohol and cigarette together. Having boyfriend, been sexually assaulted, witness parental violence throughout childhood and off campus residence are highly connected with substance misuse. From this it can be also established that drug use habit is quite knotty which need a counteractive activity to take the edge off its destructiveness. In order to make it true all stakeholders should attempt to take their roles across all level of intervention.