Assessment of Attitude towards Substance Abuse among Community in Kebele 08, Harar Town, Eastern Ethiopia

Selam Bogale, Teshome Sosengo
2021 Acta Scientific Pharmaceutical Sciences  
The problem of social drugs utilization is an emerging and serious problem in the world. According to 2017 United Nation world drug report, around 29.5 million drug abusers were exposed to serious illnesses and 11.4 million deaths were related to drug abuse. Objective: To assess attitude toward substance abuse abuse among the community of kebele 08 community, Shenkor Woreda, Harar town, Eastern Ethiopia from December 10, 2020 to February 01, 2021. Methodology: Community based cross-sectional
more » ... dy using a pre-tested structured self-administered questionnaire was conducted from December10, 2020 to February 01, 2021. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 379 respondents from kebele 08, Shenkor worede, Harar town, Eastern Ethiopia residents. The data collection was done using a self-administered structured questionnaire and the data was entered and analyzed by using statistical package for social science version 24. The result is presented in tables. Result: Out of the total 403 community members invited to fill the questionnaire, the 379 respondents participated in the study with a response rate of 94.5%. The 55.7% and 44.3% respondents were male and female respectively. The 74.4% of the study participants replied that health education is important regarding prevention of substance abuse. The 43.8% of the study respondents believe that boys who smoke have more friends than those do not smoke. The 77% reported that it is difficult to stop once someone started smoking. The 63.3% of respondents oppose practice of Khat chewing. The 28.8% of the respondents replied that they will try to practice drinking alcohol, khat or cigarette at any time in the future. The respondents reported that they think the one who smokes Cigarette as the one who lacks confidence 25.1% as a loser (23%), stupid (16.9%) and sophisticated (16.6%). Conclusion: Majority of the participants have negative attitude toward those who abuse substance especially toward those who smoke cigarette. In the current study majority of the respondents believes that health education is important for prevention of substances abuse.
doi:10.31080/asps.2021.05.0731 fatcat:ujyyqltuundfpn4ojshvxd7tbe