Drugs and alcohol use by secondary school students in Thimphu, Bhutan

Abstract

The problem of substance abuse is a global public health concern. Substance abuse is one of the most prevalent issues that people face and has afflicted millions of people around the world. Though the substance abuse is a fairly new phenomenon in Thimphu, Bhutan, its use has been escalating over the years. Only few studies, to find out the prevalence of substance use and alcohol use among students and the community, have been conducted in the recent past in Bhutan.As a step towards establishing the current trend of alcohol, smoking and drug use among adolescents in secondary schools, Thimphu, Bhutan, 423 students from various schools within the city were surveyed using self administered questionnaire. Multi stage sampling method was used to determine sample size. Selective variables such as demography and environment factors were computed using chi square statistics to find out the association. As a result of this cross sectional study, the data revealed that drug abuse is common among school children, and age of the student, academic performance, education and occupation of parents, peer pressure and curiosity are found to be significantly associated with alcohol, smoking and drug use (p-value α<0.05) among school children.