Knowledge on Substance Abuse among Adolescents

In medical terms stress is described as, "a physical or psychological stimulus that can produce mental tension or physiological reactions that may lead to illness". But there is not always necessary to say that stress in harmful as Hans Selye says, "stress is not necessarily something bad - it all depends on how person take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental." Stress can be therefore negative, positive or neutral.

Objectives: To assess the knowledge regarding substance abuse among adolescents and to find out the Association between knowledge and practices regarding substance abuse with selected demographic variables of adolescents.

Method: In order to achieve the objectives of the study, A non-experimental design with purposive, snow-ball sampling technique was used in this study. Samples 50 adolescents students 23 females and 27 males from selected PUC Colleges in Belgaum city. A self administered questionnaire was used for data collection was developed by the investigator which comprised of two parts. Part-I Semi structured questionnaire on demographic data, Part-II self-reporting knowledge questionnaire on substance abuse among adolescents

Result: The findings revealed that majority (50%) of adolescents had moderate level of knowledge on substance abuse and 30% have inadequate level of knowledge and 20% had adequate level of knowledge on substance abuse. The mean score was 11.48. There was significant association between the level of knowledge and gender (sex) on substance (drug) among the adolescents in the selected PUC colleges in Belgaum city.

Conclusion: On the basis of the findings, the investigator concluded that the professionals will have mild level of stress and selected health problems.