Prevalance of Substance Use and Abuse Among Black University Students and the Factors Influencing Them: Implications For Substance Abuse Prevention

Abstract

Substance use and abuse is widespread throughout the world, including South Africa. Substance abuse constitutes an individual, a family and a social problem. Because of the dearth of information concerning the extent of the abuse as well as conditions associated with it, particularly among Black Youth in South Africa, the present study sought to fill this gap. The present study investigated the prevalence of substance use and abuse among Black university students. Firstly, it examined the extent to which the university students abused various substances such as alcohol, tobacco, spirits, sleeping medicine, hallucinogens, barbiturates, whiffers, mandrax, dagga, amphetamines and heroin. Secondly, it investigated the variables that are associated with use and abuse of these substances. The research design used was a questionnaire- based survey. The questionnaire consisted of both open ended and closed questions, thus it yielded both quantitative and qualitative data. The first part of the survey was essentially descriptive while the second part was analytical. The measuring instrument that was used was a self- report inventory adopted from an existing questionnaire as adopted by Bodisch (1994), Kata (1994)and Stubbs (1994) which was itself based on another questionnaire originally developed by du Tait (1974). A convenient sample consisting of 520 undergraduates Psychology students at the University of Fort Hare was used as participants.