Illicit Drug Use among Student-Athletes in a Nigerian University

Prevalence and Socio-demographics

Abstract

The use of illicit drugs is detrimental to the wellbeing of individuals, including student-athletes, and this is capable of negatively affecting their performance in academics and sports. Therefore, the study assessed the prevalence and socio-demographics of illicit drug use among student-athletes in University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Cross-sectional research design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 386 student-athletes, which all completed a validated and reliability tested questionnaire. There was no sampling in the study. Data generated for the research questions were analyzed using frequency and percentages while Chi-square statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that the student-athletes highly engaged in the use of illicit drug. The most reported illicit drug used by the student-athletes are marijuana (15.8%), tramadol (9.8%) and morphine (4.4%). The most reported factor for illicit drug use is social activities. There was no significant differences in factors that predisposes student-athletes to indulge in the use of illicit drug based on gender (0.398 > .05), age (0.129 > .05) and year of study (0.075 > .05). The findings proved the need for tertiary institutions to align to the global need to curb the use of illicit drugs among youths, of which the student-athletes are part of. This would be achieved by creating forum such as seminars for periodic education on the ills of illicit drug use on the society in general, health, academic, and sports performance of individuals.