Inhalant abuse: An exploratory study

Inhalants are being abused by large numbers of people throughout the world, particularly children and adolescents. It is also an often overlooked form of ubstance abuse in adolescents.

The current study explored the inhalant abuse among adolescents seeking treatment from a tertiary care drug de-addiction clinic.

The study was conducted at a tertiary level multispecialty hospital.

The current study was a chart review of the cases with inhalant abuse/dependence presenting to the clinic over a 1-year period. All the treatment records of the de-addiction clinic were reviewed, and information was gathered regarding patients with inhalant abuse/dependence.

Descriptive statistics with frequency distribution was carried out by using SPSS version 10.0.

The mean age of the subjects was 16.24 years (SD±1.9 years; range 12-18 years). Twenty-two percent of the subjects were illiterate. Forty percent of the adolescents had a family history of alcohol use problems and 48% that of tobacco use. The mean age of the initiation of inhalant use was 11.6 years (SD±2.17 years). It varied from 9 to 18 years. Forty percent of the adolescents had made a previous abstinence attempt.

The findings provide important information on an underresearched area in psychiatry.