Predictors of Psychoactive Drug Use Trends among Public Secondary School Students In Aba, Nigeria

Drug abuse is a serious problem with adverse consequences amongyouths. Cases of psychoactive drug use among students in public secondary schoolsin Aba Education Zone have been on the rise despite various efforts to createawareness and nip it in the bud. The current study aimed to determine the influence ofintrinsic and extrinsic variables on psychoactive drug use tendencies of publicsecondary school students in the study area. The study adopted the ex post factosurvey design. A sample of 200 students participated in the study. The participantswere selected through the multistage random sampling procedure. The datacollection instrument was the researcher-made questionnaire tagged “Intrinsic andExtrinsic Predictors of Drug Use Tendencies Questionnaire” (I&EPDUQ). Thequestionnaire was validated by three instrument development experts and had areliability index of .78 Cronbach's Alpha. Simple linear regression analysis wasemployed in answering the research questions and testing the null hypotheses in thestudy. Results obtained showed that curiosity, emotional distress, peer influence, andparental substance use significantly predicted psychoactive substance use amongpublic school students in the study area. Based on these findings, it wasrecommended, among others, that the government ensure public secondary schoolshave functional counselling centres to provide counselling and rehabilitation servicesto students who may have for whatever intrinsic or extrinsic reasons begun toexperiment with psychoactive drugs.