Awareness and Attitude towards Substance use among the College students in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation

The present study was intended to assess the awareness and attitude towards substance use among the college students in Thiruvananthapuram corporation. The primary objectives of the study were to assess the awareness and to assess the attitude towards substance use among the college students in Thiruvananthapuram corporation. The secondary objectives were to find out the relationship between awareness and attitude towards substance use among the college students and to find out the association of awareness and attitude towards substance use among college students with their sociodemographic variables. Quantitative research approach and descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted for this study. Nola J Pender’s Health Promotion Model was used as conceptual framework. The data were collected from 450 college students from various Arts and Science colleges in Thiruvananthapuram by multi stage cluster sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the sociodemographic data and awareness regarding substance use and Likert 5-point scale was used to assess the attitude towards substance use among college students. The results revealed that majority (62.7%) of participants had average awareness regarding substance use where as 13.3% had poor awareness. Assessment of attitude of college students showed that 91.1% had negative attitude towards substance use and 8.9% had a positive attitude towards substance use. There is significant association between awareness and age of students (χ² = 17.4, p=0.025). Attitude had significant association with occupation of mother (χ² = 10.2, p = 0.036) and socio-economic status (χ² = 7.9, p=0.005) of the students. The correlation coefficient (r = 0.41, p= 0.001), indicates a moderate positive relationship between awareness and attitude towards substance use. This relationship is statistically significant, suggesting that awareness is an important factor in shaping attitudes towards substance use. Study findings have great implication in public health for developing interventional strategies for prevention of substance use among adolescents and there by shape a healthier society.