Perception of addictions and religiosity in medical students

Abstract

Introduction Religiosity is among the factors that determine the doctor’s relationship with his addict patient and the empathy he should have. Objectives To verify whether future doctors are aware of the addictogenic power of certain substances and certain behaviors and to study their perception of different addictions according to religiosity. Methods This was a cross-sectional study with interns and externs of the Sfax medical faculty, in November 2016, via an anonymous questionnaire. Results 141 students were included and 98,6% declared to be believers. The average age was 23 years. The sex ratio was 0.38. Alcoholism was the addiction most considered as a sin (87.9%), smoking 51.8%, hookah 45.4%, cannabis 78%, gambling 77.3%, internet addiction 16.3%, video game addiction 15.6%, work addiction 8.5%, and exercise addiction 5.7%. Female gender was more often correlated with perceived alcoholism, cannabis addiction, and gambling as sins (p = 0.002; p <0.001 and p = 0.043, respectively). Gambling was significantly more condemned by the participants who fasted (p <0.001). Prayer was significantly correlated with religious disapproval of addictions to tobacco, hookah, alcohol, cannabis and gambling (respectively p <0.001, p = 0.001, p <0.001 , p <0.001, p <0.001). Smoking, hookah and alcohol were significantly more perceived as sins by veiled women (respectively p = 0.011, p = 0.002, p = 0.040). Conclusions According to our study, most medical students have a religiously hostile attitude to many addictions. Improving medical training in addictology would allow them to adopt the necessary empathic attitude, without being judgmental. Disclosure No significant relationships.

Keywords

• Perception
• religiosity
• medical students
• addictions