INCIDENCE OF PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH DISTURBANCES AMONG NONMEDICAL TRAMADOL USING EMERGING ADULTS IN OWERRI, IMO STATE

Abstract

This study screened twenty-eight (18 male & 10 female) emerging adults aged 16 -27 yearsselected from a normal population, who had used tramadol for at least one month. Respondentswere drawn through the snowball sampling method. The Tramadol Questerview and Drug UseScreening Inventory-Revised were used to evaluate respondents’ non-medical use of tramadoland the severity of psychosocial health disturbances, respectively. The study adopted adescriptive design and descriptive statistics were used to analyse data. Findings showed thatrespondents had significant overall problem density ranging from 24.48 at the lowest to 67.34at the highest. Tramadol use was associated with significant absolute and overall problemdensities in the six domains of psychosocial health screened. Also, 80.8% of the respondentsused 200mg to 600mg day daily, and dosage per day was significantly associated withthe health status domain. The study concluded that long-term nonmedical misuse of tramadolhas a negative impact on the psychosocial health of young persons. It is recommended thattramadol should remain scheduled as a controlled drug in Nigeria; and be prescribed in rarecases and for very short therapy periods for older persons.