Substance abuse among adolescents in Georgia

To estimate the substance abuse and thus assess the basic indicators of health risk behavior of the adolescents in Georgia: frequencies of their tobacco, alcohol and drugs consumption. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was adapted from the Swiss Survey (SMASH2002), translated into Georgian and other languages mainly used in schools (Russian, Armenian and Azeri). It contained 87 questions. Two-stage cluster sampling was devised. Weight was adjusted. A total of 599 classes were selected. Field work took place in 2004. All questionnaires (n=9499; 56,8% filled out by girls, 39,6% - by boys; the mean age was 15,5+/-1,1 years) before being processed into the Epidata were edited. The final data were analysed by SPSS 11.0. 10,4% of adolescents have reported to smoke. The average age of starting to smoke is 13,4 years. 61,2% girls and 67.8% boys drink vine. 56,7% out of the total number of respondents claimed to have been never drunk, 30,0% - answered positively. 2,3% said that they had intravenous drug injection. The drug of preference is cannabis - 6,8%. 72,2% of those who have had intravenous drug injections answered positively to the question "Have you ever been really drunk?" Performed survey is a first one done among adolescents in Georgia. It gave us basic information for planning and implementation of necessary measures in order to improve the health of adolescents and raise awareness of professionals involved in health care and prevention settings for adolescents.