INTRODUCTION:

Addiction Is A Chronic Disease. Drug addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the drug addict and those around them.²

WHO report- The harmful use of alcohol results in 3.3 million deaths each year. On average every person in the world aged 15 years or older drinks 6.2 liters of pure alcohol per year. At least 15.3 million persons have drug use disorders.¹

Drug addiction in Punjab:-an overview:

Until the 1980, drug abuse in Punjab is confined to alcohol, opium, poppy husk, tobacco and cannabis but since 1980 the trend shifted tremendously towards more powerful semi synthetic illicit opioids i.e. heroin. By the 1990s, along with injectable heroin, injection of other powerful prescription opioids became common such as morphine, pethidine, pentazocine but most commonly buprenorphine ( often as a cocktail with diazepam and antihistamine injections). Along with injecting drug use, the 2000s witnessed heavy oral abuse of prescription or pharmaceutical opioids and other medical drugs, locally known as “medical”. These included codeine containing cough syrups and other oral opioids such as dextropropoxyphene capsules. Finally the current decade is also witnessing use of stimulants like cocaine and amphetamine-like stimulants. So this made the drug situation in Punjab extremely complex and of great concern, resulting in high rate of crime, family disruption, social instability and lack of productivity. Therefore counseling and awareness among youth regarding ill-effects of drugs is the current need of the hour. Adequate medical services along with social support, positive community response and intervention in associated social issues can result in containing the problem of addiction. ⁵

NEED OF THE STUDY:

Use of tobacco, alcohol and other substances is a worldwide problem which affects many children and adolescents. Early initiation of substance abuse is usually associated with a poor prognosis and a life- long pattern of irresponsible behavior. The hope that simple information given through educational programs will be sufficient to prevent drug dependence is frequently expressed, however, there is no evidence to support it.³ Knowledge with regards to consequence of substance use among adolescents enough to prevent them from initiating and continuing its use is a question that needs to be clarified further. Therefore keeping in focus the research question- present study aims to find -what is the level of knowledge regarding the substance abuse among adolescents. ⁴

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

A descriptive study to assess the knowledge regarding substance abuse among adolescent students of selected schools in Amritsar, Punjab with a view to develop information booklet.

AIM OF THE STUDY:

The study is intended to assess the knowledge regarding substances abuse among adolescent students of selected schools in Amritsar, Punjab with a view to develop information booklet.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To assess the knowledge regarding drug abuse among adolescent students.

2. To find the relationship of knowledge with selected variables( age, sex, class, type of school, area of residence, family history, parent’s educational status, parent’s occupation, parent’s income, source of knowledge).

3. To develop information booklet.

DELIMITATIONS:

1. This study is limited to school going adolescents who were available and willing to participate.

2. Sample size was small.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:

The study was descriptive in nature, 100 subjects were taken from selected schools in Amritsar, Punjab. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. A self structured questionnaire was prepared to assess the knowledge. A try out of the tool was done for clarity, relevance and feasibility of conducting the study. A pilot study was rehearsed over a sample size of 10 before the final study project.

Analysis and interpretation was done in accordance with objectives. Descriptive and inferential statistics was done by using SPSS software version 15.0.

RESULTS:

Table 1:- SOCIO DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE N-100

Age	Frequency	Percentage (%)
10-13	1	1
14-16	94	94
17-19	5	5
Gender
Male	59	59
Female	41	41
Class
10^th	100	100
Type of school
Private	100	100
Area of residence
Rural	15	15
Urban	85	85
Family history
Yes	14	14
No	86	86
Father’s Qualification
Primary	2	2
Middle	6	6
Matric	26	26
Senior Secondary	19	19
Graduation	38	38
Post graduation	9	9
Mother’s Qualification
Primary	0	0
Middle	4	4
Matric	13	13
Senior Secondary	30	30
Graduation	39	39
Post graduation	14	14
Father’s occupation
Private employee	5	5
Business	72	72
Government employee	9	9
Agriculture	9	9
Labourer	3	3
others	2	2
Mother’s occupation
Private employee	7	7
Business	3	3
Government employee	6	6
Labourer	0	0
Housewife	82	82
others	2	2
Monthly family Income
Below 10000	6	6
10001-20000	16	16
20001-30000	43	43
Above 30000	35	35
Source of Knowledge
Mass media	55	55
Health personnel	2	2
Family members	20	20
Teachers	16	16
Peer group	7	7

Table 1 shows the distribution of subjects according to different demographic variables. Majority of the subjects 94% were in the age group of 14-16 years, followed by 5% subjects in the age group of 17-19 years and only 1% subjects in the age group of10-13years.

Distribution of population according to the gender, majority of the subjects 59% were males and 41% subjects were females.

All subjects were in class 10^th and studying in private school.

Place of residence, 85% subjects were residing in urban area followed by 15% subjects in rural area.

Majority 86% of the subjects were having no family history and only 14% subjects were having family history.

As per education status, majority of subject’s fathers 38% were graduate, 26% were matriculate, 19% were senior secondary, 9% were post-graduate, 6% were educated up to middle school and followed by only 2% subjects were educated up to primary level.

As per education status, majority of subject’s mother 39% were graduate, 30% were senior secondary, 14% were post-graduate, 13% were matriculate and followed by 4% were educated up to middle school.

Distribution of subjects according to the parent’s occupation, majority of the subject’s fathers 72% were businessmen, 9% government employees, 9% agriculturists, 5% private employees, 3% laborers and 2% others on the other hand majority of subject’s mothers 82% were housewives, 6% government employees, 5% private employees, 3% businesswomen and 2% other. Majority of subjects 43% had monthly family income between 20001-30000 followed by 35% more than 30001, 16%, 10001-20000 and 6% less than 10000. Majority 55% of the subjects were having previous exposure to health information by mass media, 20% subjects by family members, 16% subjects by teachers 7% by peer group and 2% subjects by health personnel.

Table 2:- OVERALL KNOWLEDGE SCORE

Knowledge score	Mean	SD
	10.63	2.94

Table 2 depicts the mean knowledge score which is 10.63 and SD 2.94.

Table 3:- DISTRIBUTION OF SUBJECTS ON THE BASIS OF KNOWLEDGE CATEGORY.

Knowledge category	Frequency	Percentage (%)
Adequate Knowledge	57	57
Inadequate Knowledge	43	43
Total	100	100

Figure 1

Table 3 and figure 1 depicts the distribution of subjects on the basis of knowledge category. 43% of subjects had inadequate knowledge (below mean score) and 57% has adequate knowledge score (above mean score).

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS and RECOMMENDATIONS:

Summary

An assessment of the knowledge of the adolescent students regarding substance abuse was done in this study. The study was descriptive in nature, 100 subjects from private school of selected areas of Amritsar, during the data collection period were studied. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. A structured questionnaire was prepared to assess the knowledge. The tool was given to various nursing, medical and language experts for its content validity. A final tool was developed by incorporating the suggestions of various experts.

CONCLUSION:

The findings of the study revealed that the knowledge was 57%. On the other hand, 43% of the study subjects were inadequately aware of substance abuse.

So it is concluded that 43% study subjects are still inadequately aware of it. Therefore awareness campaigns should be arranged to make the people aware and prevent this deadly but preventable condition.

IMPLICATIONS:

The study findings have certain very important implications for the nursing profession i.e. clinical practice, community health nursing, nursing education, nursing administration and nursing research. In all the areas nurses act as an educator, organizer, leader, counselor and motivator. Nurse can provide a family centered approach to help family to gain the knowledge regarding drug abuse and its prevention.

Nursing Education:

The community health nursing and medical-surgical nursing curriculum for all levels of nursing should give emphasis on substance abuse and its primary, secondary and tertiary levels of prevention, based on the findings of this study.

As the study findings reveals that 18.1% of the subjects were inadequately aware of diabetes mellitus therefore, The community health worker should have strong emphasis on making the community aware of substance abuse, its prevention, early detection and treatment. A community health nurse should take the benefit of each and every encounter with the people.

Continuing Education and instructional programmes of substance abuse knowledge should be organized at the hospital and community level by the nursing staff and nursing students.

Nursing Practice:

Nurses are the primary health care workers for the early detection of substance abuse by means of proper assessment to screen the subjects. This in turn will help in early detection and treatment of the substance abuse cases.

Nurses can motivate the cases for regular screening.

Nursing Administration:

Nursing has become a complex and highly varied practice discipline with a rapidly growing, well developed and well documented scientific and humanistic knowledge base.

The nurse administrators should arrange knowledge or awareness campaigns on substance abuse for the hospital and community people and should also assess the effectiveness of such programmes thereafter.

There should be in-service training for the nurses to get them acquainted with the newer technologies in the field of early substance abuse detection method.

There should be provision for free screening of the community population so that mortality and morbidity rates of subjects from substance abuse can be put towards a declining trend.

Nursing Research:

Findings of the study will act as a catalyst to carry out more extensive research on a large population sample in different areas of the community. Very few studies of this kind have been done in Punjab to get an exact scenario of the people knowledge substance abuse.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The study can be replicated on large sample to validate and generalize its findings.

A study can be conducted to assess the attitude of the people regarding substance abuse.

A co-relation study can be conducted on prevalence, knowledge and attitude of the people regarding substance abuse.

Health education to population about substance abuse should be provided.

Population should be sensitized about availability of screening facilities in districts where health programmes are in place.

In an effort to overcome cost difficulties and other hurdles, researchers can use new methods for early detection of substance abuse abnormalities in poor communities—methods that are reliable, affordable, accurate, and easy to teach at the community level. Based on these criteria, a simple visual approach is of particular interest for countries like India.

A study can be conducted to assess the knowledge and attitude of health care professionals on substance abuse.

A study can be carried out to assess the efficiency of health care workers in performing the substance abuse screening test.

A comparative study of various methods of substance abuse screening can be made to select the best one of all.

REFERENCES:

1. Neeraja KP. Substance abuse. Essentials of mental health and psychiatric nursing. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers;2011.593-616.

2. available at www. wikipedia.com.

3. www.dnaindia.com

4. www.dailymail.co.uk

5. www.departmentofpsychiatry.pgi.chd.com

Received on 17.03.2015 Modified on 11.04.2015

Asian J. Nur. Edu. and Research 5(4): Oct.- Dec.2015; Page 463-466

DOI: 10.5958/2349-2996.2015.00095.6