Original Article
Factors Related to the Risk of Drug Use among Japanese College Students
2016 Volume 12 Pages 1-8
Details
2016 Volume 12 Pages 1-8
Background: Since 2008, there has been a heightened awareness in Japan concerning the use of illegal drugs by college students. As a result, colleges and universities have been implementing drug abuse prevention programs as required by the government. Previously, drug abuse prevention programs in Japan mainly targeted middle school and high school students. We conducted a study concerning the prevalence of drug use and related factors among college students to inform drug use prevention programs targeting college students.
Methods: A questionnaire was completed by 1,445 sophomore students at 16 colleges and universities throughout Japan in 2012-2013. The questionnaire asked respondents about current drug use and other drug use related experiences. It also assessed students’ personal backgrounds, orientations toward drugs, and personality characteristics.
Results: Among the respondents, 2.1% reported having drug use experience. The logistic regression analyses indicate the risk of drug use, measured by past drug use and the intent and willingness questions, is correlated with the students’ sense of norm toward drug use, Pachinko/Pachi-slot experiences, club/rave experiences, and personality characteristics such as self assertiveness and affinity for sensation.
Conclusions: The present study confirms that there are college students already have had experience of using drugs (2.1%), and the risk of drug use is correlated with several behavioral factors and students’ personality characteristics. The findings suggest a drug use prevention program targeting college students would be more effective if it aims to raise the sense of norm among not only individual students but also the school as a whole and includes monitoring Pachinko/Pachi-slot and club/rave activities. Individual students’ personality characteristics should also be considered in designing a prevention program. Since the present study was conducted at only those schools which complied with our request for cooperation, it is difficult to generalize these results to represent the national college population.
