European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

SUBSTANCE USE AND ITS CONTRIBUTING FACTORS AMONG MALE AND FEMALE IN SELECTED VDC OF DANG DISTRICT, NEPAL: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Belbase Maya* and Budhathoki Bina

ABSTRACT

Background: Substances are things like alcohol, tobacco, smoking which are used by people as the mean of entertainment, coping from stress and some cultural practice of specific groups. Substance use poses major political, social and health challenges worldwide. The death and disability related to tobacco and alcohol use is increasing globally including in Nepal. Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the status of substance use and its contributing factors among male and female of selected community. Methods and Materials: The descriptive cross sectional comparative study design was used for this study among the 100 male and 100 female. Non-probability purposive sampling technique was used in terms of selecting research setting/areas and research participants. Pretested semi-structured interview schedule was used for data collection. Data was checked for completeness and accuracy and collected data was entered in SPSS software version 20. Descriptive statistics such as number and percentage is used to describe findings. Result: This study reveals that substance using rate was significantly high on male than female alcohol use (50% vs 35%), smoking (29% vs 7%), “tobacco chewing” (35% vs 1%). Peer pressure was the major contributing factor for the use of most of substances, among alcohol users (86% vs 88.57%), among smokers (68% vs71.43%) while among tobacco users only male(82.86%) had used tobacco due to peer pressure. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that use of substance is significantly high among male than female. Peer pressure was seen as major contributing factor of substances use. It is recommended that various awareness programmes should be carried out in order to change the behaviour of people and parent should aware of activities of their children, proper guidance is also required.

Keywords: Substance; alcohol; smoking; tobacco use; contributing factors.