Psychoactive substance use among medical and paramedical undergraduate students of Lucknow

Psychoactive drugs are substances that, when taken in or administered into one's system, affect mental processes like perception, consciousness, cognition, mood, and emotions. The use of psychoactive substances often starts at a young age. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of psychoactive substance use among medical and paramedical undergraduate students of Lucknow.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 492 MBBS, BDS, and BSc Nursing students of Lucknow. A predesigned pretested semistructured self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection and analysis by using the SPSS 26.0 version.

The overall lifetime prevalence of "Ever use of the psychoactive substance" was 46.1%, whereas the overall current psychoactive substance use (in the past 3 months) was 35.2%. The prevalence of lifetime alcohol use was the highest at 36.6%, followed by tobacco (22.4%) and cannabis (17.9%). The prevalence was seen to be higher in males than in females and the highest in fourth-year academic students compared to other years.

The present study indicates that male students consume more psychoactive substances than female students. Effective interventions and strategies must be planned and implemented to reduce substance use among medical and paramedical students and overcome the issue of substance use by promoting a healthy lifestyle and coping skills.