Prevalence of Substance Use Among Undergraduate Medical Students at the University of Nairobi

Abstract

Introduction: There is a growing and worrying trend in the prevalence of substance use disorders among medical students globally. This substance use not only interferes with learning, which is a major concern considering the cognitive and psychological impact on the student, it also impacts on the medical students’ future careers as practicing physicians this has longstanding implications that could have on patients. There is paucity of local studies done and published from this particular demographic in Kenya to assess the trend among medical students. Objective: The broad objective. To determine the prevalence of substance use among undergraduate medical students in the University of Nairobi. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 387 undergraduate medical students in the University of Nairobi using proportional sampling. Data was collected via self-administered The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) and researcher designed socio-demographic questionnaire. SPSS for windows version 25 was used for data analysis. Frequencies, proportions and Fishers’ exact test was used. Results: A total of 387 students participated recruited. Prevalence of substance use was 43.7% [95% CI: 38.7%-48.7%], the substance with highest use were Alcohol 39.6%, cannabis 24.7%, cigarette 17%. Cannabis was associated with the most frequent use and the substance with the highest risk of harmful use. The greatest influencing factor to start substance use was curiosity and peer pressure 78.4%.