Abstract
Background: Substance abuse constitutes a major public health problem which is associated with a wide range of social and health impacts on the addicts, their families, and the society as a whole.
Objective(s): This study aimed to explore the pattern and social determinants of substance abuse among attendants of Kamenge Neuropsychiatric Centre in Burundi.
Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on substance abusers who attended Neuropsychiatric Centre of Kamenge from September to November 2017and provided their oral informed consent to participate in the study. The interview questionnaire was divided into two sections. The first section identified the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents whereas the second section explored the pattern of substance abuse as self-reported by attendees. The obtained data were analyzed by descriptive and analytic statistics using the SPSS version 20.0 software. The significance of the results was set at the 0.05 level of significance.
Results: The studied substance abusers were 98, their mean age was 27.8 years (standard deviation, SD = ± 8.7), ranging from 16 to 57 years. Most of them were males (92.9%), single never married (75.5%), came from nuclear families (84.7%), and lived in cities (71.4%). The largest proportion of them were unemployed (46.9%) while half of them had secondary education level (50.0%). Family history of substance misuse was reported by more than three-fifths of the respondents (64.3%). Among the studied subjects, the most frequent substance of initiation was alcohol (43.9%), followed by tobacco (29.6%) and cannabis (26.5%). The mean age of onset of substance use initiation was 14.2 years (SD = ± 3.5), ranging from seven to 26 years. The most common contributing factors for substance use initiation was by curiosity (37.8%). Poly-substance abuse was common among the studied subjects (94.9%). This pattern of recurrent substance abuse was significantly associated with being male, being single, living in cities, and having high education level. The most frequent combination of substances was made by alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis (32.7%). Subsequently, the most frequent routes of taking substances in combination was smoking (or inhalation) and oral ingestion (43.9%).
Conclusion: Substance abuse is essentially a health problem of single and unemployed young people who started using substances at an earlier age. National data on current pattern of substance abuse are needed to be included in effective preventive programs required to encourage adopting positive attitudes among school going teenagers toward self-confidence and adequacy, as to prevent risk behavior taking among them.
Keywords: Psycho-active substances, substance abuse, drug misuse, Burundi.
References
- Di Chiara G, Bassareo V, Fenu S, De Luca MA, Spina L, Cadoni C, et al. Dopamine and drug addiction: The Nucleus Accumbens Shell Connection. Neurophar 2004;47(Suppl 1):227-
- Kalivas PW, Volkow ND. The neural basis of addiction: A pathology of motivation and choice. Am J Psychiatry 2005;162:1403-
- American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association 2013; p. 481-
- United States Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse. Research report series. Comorbidity: Addiction and Other Mental Illness. Rockville: NIDA 2010; NIH publication number 10-5771.
- Tripathi KD. Essentials of Medical Pharmacology, 4th Edition Updated Reprint. New Delhi: Jaypee brothers, Medical Publishers (P) Ltd 2001; p. 67-
- American Society of Addiction Medicine. Public policy statement: Definition of Addiction. Washington D.C. ASAM. [Online]. 2011. [Cited: July 6, 2017]. Available from. htt://www.asam.org/advocacy/find-a-policy-statement/view-policy-statement/public-policy-statements/2011/12/15/the-definition-of-addiction.
- Newcomb MD, Locke T. Health, social, and psychological consequences of drug use and abuse. In: Sloboda Z, editor. Epidemiology of drug abuse. Springer: New York 2005; p. 45-
- Ndetei DM, Pizzo M, Kuria MW, Khasakhala L, Maru HM, Mutiso V. Substance abuse and psychiatric co-morbidities: A Case Study of Patients at Mathari Psychiatric Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. Afr J Drug Alcoh Studies 2008;7(1):53-
- World Health Organization, Global Information System on Alcohol and Health (GISAH). Global Health Observatory (GHO) data: Total alcohol per capita (≥ 15 years of age) consumption in litres of pure alcohol [Online].2016. [Cited: March 30, 2018].Available from http://www.who.int/gho/alcohol/en/.
- United Nations Office on Drug and Crime. World drug report 2017. Vienna: United Nations publication 2017; Sales No. E.17.XI.7.
- World Health Organization. Tobacco fact sheet. Geneva: World Health Organization [Online]. 2016. [Cited: March 12, 2018 ] Available from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/.
- United States Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network. Global burden of disease study 2016 results. Seattle: United States Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) 2017.
- International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). IBM SPSS statistics for Windows, Version 20.0. Armonk: IMB Corporation; 2011.
- Maruf MM, Khan MZR, Jahan N. Pattern of Substance Use: Study in a De-addiction Clinic. Oman Med J 2016;31(5):327-
- Van-Etten MI, Anthony JC. Male-female differences in transitions from first drug opportunity to first use: Searching for Sub-group Variation by Age, Race, Religion, and Urban Status. J Wom Health Gend Based Med 2001;10(8):797-
- Albert E. Women of Burundi. A Study in Social Values. In: Paulme D, editor. Women of Tropical Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press 1963; p. 179-
- Bierut LJ, Dinwiddie SH, Begleiter H, Crowe RR, Hesselbrock V, Nurnberger JI, et al. Familial transmission of substance dependence: Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine, and habitual Smoking: A Report from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism. Arch Gen Psychiat 1998; 55(11):982-
- Goldman D, Oroszi G, Ducci F. The genetics of addictions: Uncovering the Genes. Nat Rev Genetics 2005; 6(7):521-
- Zinkina J, Korotayev A. Explosive Population Growth in Tropical Africa: Crucial omission in development forecasts-emerging risks and way out. World Futures 2014;70(2):120-
- Republic of Burundi, Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of Burundi (ISTEEBU). Third Demographic and Health Survey in Burundi (DHS III) 2016-2017. [French version: Troisième enquête démographique et de santé au Burundi (EDS III) 2016-2017]. Bujumbura, ISTEEBU 2017.
- Goswami H, Goswamee G. Perception of substance abuse: Prevalence, Causes, and Socio-economic Status. The Clarion- Intern MultidiscJ 2017;6(2):75-
- Brook JS, Whiteman M, Gordon AS. Stages of drug use in adolescence: Personality, peer, and family correlates. Developmental Psychology 1983;19(2):269-
- Goodarzi F, Karrari P, Eizadi-Mood N, Mehrpour O, Misagh R, Setude S, et al. Epidemiology of drug abuse (chronic intoxication) and its related factors in a MMT Clinic in Shiraz, Southern Iran. Iran J Toxicol 2011;4(4):377-
- Kandel DB, Yamaguchi K. Developmental patterns of the use of legal, illegal, and medically prescribed psychotropic drugs from adolescence to young adulthood. NIDA Res Monograph 1985;56:193-
- Niraula SR, Chhetri DB, Singh GK, Nagesh S, Connell FA. Drug abuse pattern and risk taking behaviors among drug Abusers in Dharan, Nepal. J Sub Abuse Alcohol 2015;3(4):1040-
- Tapert SF, Aarons GA, Sedlar GR, Brown SA. Adolescent substance use and sexual risk-taking behavior. J Adol Health 2001;28(3):181-
- Rather YH, Bashir W, Sheikh AA, Amin M, Zahgeer YA. Socio-demographic and clinical profile of substance abusers attending a regional drug De-addiction Centre in chronic conflict area: Kashmir, India. Malays J Med Sci 2013;20(3):31-
- International Criminal Police Organization. Connecting Police for a safer world: Burundi ICPO/INTERPOL Bujumbura [Online].2018. [Cited: September 9, 2018]. Available from https://www.interpol.int/Member-countries/Africa/Burundi.
- Wolvelaer FV. Alcohol addiction treatment programmes in Bujumbura, Burundi. M.D Thesis. Ghent University, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science 2015;24-
Corresponding Author
Bigirindavyi Dismas
Telephone: + 257 79580957 (Burundi), +2 01097906319 (Egypt), Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v7i3.112
