O Mundo da Saúde (Feb 2021)

Profile of drug abuse among Pharmacy students at a university in Piauí.

  • Carla Graziela da Silva,
  • Anna Clara dos Santos Silva,
  • Danielle Yasmin Moura Lopes de Araújo,
  • Náiguel Castelo Branco Silva,
  • Janyerson Dannys Pereira da Silva,
  • Evaldo Hipólito de Oliveira,
  • Éverton José Ferreira de Araújo

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 45
pp. 045 – 055

Abstract

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A descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative study was carried out among students from the initial and final semesters of the Pharmacy course at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI) during 2019, seeking to analyze the profile of drug abuse among students, subject of scarce publications in Piauí. A closed-answer questionnaire based on the adapted “ASSIST” version was applied, after approval by the UFPI Research Ethics Committee. Fisher's exact test was used to apply an association hypothesis with a significance of 5%. The survey included 41 participants, 56.0% female and 29.0% male. 63.0% of participants were aged 20 years or more and 22.0% were under 20 years old. It was found that 90.2% reported having already used some abused drug. 17.1% of the students reported having used illegal drugs. The significant majority (p <0.05) of the individuals who used drugs corresponded to the older participants involved in the study. Among the participants who used drugs, the significant majority (p <0.05) indicated use of legal drugs. 4 (9.8%) participants did not use any drugs, and all belonged to the first semesters of the course. There was a predominance of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and marijuana. There was an absolute majority of students who stated that they had never tried to control or decrease their drug use (n=31), regardless of the semester taken. The research confirms the importance of the theme and demonstrates the need for constant monitoring of the university population.

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