PREVALENCE AND ASSOCIATED RISK FACTORS FOR DRUG ABUSE AMONG YOUTHS IN THE ILORIN EMIRATE, NIGERIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WELFARE INTERVENTION

Abstract

This study focused on the prevalence and associated risk factors for drug abuseamong youths in the Ilorin Emirate, Nigeria, and implications for social welfare intervention.The population of the study consisted of all people within the age cohort of youth who areinvolved in drug abuse in the study area using purposive sampling to select six organisationsthat are dealing with people who abuse psychoactive drugs within the area of study. The studyused snowballing to draw forty (40) research participants from each organisation, totalling 240participants. The structured questionnaires were content validated, and the Cronbach alphaformula was used to determine the internal consistency reliability coefficients of 0.74, 0.84,0.79, and 0.81, respectively, were obtained from all the scales. The data collected were viadescriptive statistics, such as frequency counts, percentages, pie charts, means and standarddeviations. The findings revealed that alcohol, cannabis/marijuana, tramadol,cigarette/tobacco, and Arizona, among others, are the leading drugs commonly abused by youthand have adverse effects on users. Equally, the study shows that inadequate staffing andstigmatisation from the public are the major factors impeding effective social welfareintervention in the study area. On the basis of these findings, the study recommended that thereis an urgent need to recruit more social workers and establish more social welfare organisationsthat are dealing with people who abuse one form of drug or another to increase the number ofqualified personnel that can handle such cases.