Psychological Determinants of Drug Abuse Among Russian University Students

Introduction: The goal of the study was to reveal the psychological determinants of drug abuse among students.

Methods: In April of 2010 we surveyed 627 Saint Petersburg State University students. Data were collected using a self-completion questionnaire. T-test, chi-square and logistic regression were employed to compare the subsets of the students.

Results: The sample was 28.1% of male (mean age=18.9 years, SD=1.59). 183 students (29.2%) used the drugs at least once in a lifetime; almost half of them (90 respondents) used the drugs within the past 12 months; 30 students used the drugs during the last 30 days prior the study. Only 3 students reported injecting drugs, only 1 person injected drugs within the past 12 months.

The drugs used (in a lifetime) were cannabis (89.1%), stimulants (26.8%), hypnotics  and sedatives (12.6%), hallucinogens (9.8%), cocaine (7.1%), atropine drugs (5.5%), household chemicals or sodium hydroxybutyrate (3.3%) and opiates (2.7%).

Drug users were more often males (χ²=11.0; p≤0.001); older than non-users (χ²=14.18; p≤0.05); had higher monthly income (χ²=18.93; p≤0.01); were not religious (χ²=4.14; p≤0.05); more often attended night clubs (χ²=65.34; p≤0.001); less frequently communicated with parents and relatives within the last 30 days (χ²=14.72; p≤0.05); tended to study up just before the examinations (χ²=17.25; p≤0.001). Drug users had higher the Motivational Distortion subscale (16-PF) scores than non-users (mean MD score=5.52 vs. mean MD score=4.94, t = 2.41; p≤0.05).

An average age of the first drug use was 16.8 years (SD=1.59). The most common reasons to try drugs were a desire to experiment (89.6%) and “My friends tried it” (40.4%).

Logistic regression model explaining the abstinence from drugs included attitude towards the hypothetic close friend using drugs (“I would do my best to persuade him/her to quit drugs” (OR=3.439; p≤0.001); “I would persuade him/her to seek medical or psychotherapeutic help” (OR=12.406; p≤0.001)); drug using friends (OR=0.239; p≤0.001); the perceived prevalence of drug use in the high school (p≤0.01) and the perceived risk of one or two marijuana or hashish use (“No risk at all” (OR=0.56; p≤0.001), “The risk is low” (OR=0.175; p≤0.01)).

Conclusions: The target of the effective drug abuse prevention is not the individual student only, but also the group norms. The preventive programs should seek to overcome the misconceptions about the prevalence of drug use among students and school children by promoting the research data. It also should seek to change the wrong ideas about drug use risks and consequences.