Publications

During the University period, students experience independence and freedom from direct adult and familysupervision, self-decision and intense academic pressures as well as sharing living quarters with people they barelyknow. They also form new social groups and may be exposed to values different from their parental values. Thesenew values may motivate the youth to indulge in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, alcohol and illicit drug use.Undergraduate students make the transition from a restricted life monitored by parents to a more self-directed lifeinfluenced by the university environment and as such, the risk of substance use was increased in universityenvironments. The study sought to determine the prevalence and establish the determinants of substance useamong students at Kampala International University-Western Campus. A cross-sectional observational andanalytic study design was utilized. A total of 176 randomly selected participants were recruited in the study.Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify factors associated with substance use.Odds ratios with a 95% confidence interval were computed to determine the level of significance. The majority ofthe study participants 125 (71.02%) were female participants whereas the minority of participants 51 (28.98%)were males. The majority of study participants 54 (30.68%) of the study participants belonged to the catholicreligion. The prevalence of substance use among the study participants was 56.82% (100). The most usedsubstance abuse was alcohol, followed by marijuana and shisha. The substances of abuse least used were cocaine,gasoline, and opium. Poor role modelling by teachers, Stressful finance clearing, too much freedom at campus, andweight management were independently significantly associated with substance use among study participants.This study has shown that the level of substance abuse was high among the students at KIU-WC. Most of thedeterminants of substance use were due to school-related factors such as stressful financial clearing, poor rolemodelling by lecturers, and too much freedom on campus. Lecturers should portray a good example to thestudents since poor role modelling was found to be associated with substance use. Parents should endeavour toprovide all the financial needs to their sons and daughters.Keywords: University environment, Substance abuse, Parents, Students, Alcohol.