[Trampers in India - Description of a population (author's transl)]

50 trampers in India and Sri Lanka were studied in a semistructured interview by a questionnaire for socio-demographic data, for their medical and psychiatric history and their drug-experience. The MPI (Eysenck) and SSS (Zuckermann) were applied as tests for describing personality. Most of the trampers are around 25 years, stem from medium economical strata, have an education of high school or university. Nearly all of them are experienced drug-users (mainly hashish), most of them for long time without increase of intake and without bodily or mental or social deterioration. In the MPI the score for extraversion and neuroticism is within the (English) norm rage. Female probands showed a higher score of neuroticism than males. The total score in the SSS was significantly higher than in the standard population, mainly due to significantly elevated scores in the scale for disinhibition and boredom susceptibility.