Stella F Usifoh1
,
Stephena U Ighedosa2,
Cynthia Oboh1,
Isabel N Aika1
For correspondence:- Stella Usifoh Email: sfusifoh@uniben.edu Tel: +2348056226668
Published: 31 December 2016
Citation: Usifoh SF, Ighedosa SU, Oboh C, Aika IN. Awareness and prevalence of lifestyle drug use among social science students in University of Benin, Benin City. J Sci Pract Pharm 2016; 3(1):84-91 doi: 10.47227/jsppharm.v3i1.2
© 2016 The author(s).
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Purpose: The study was to determine the level of awareness and prevalence of the use of Lifestyle Drugs (LD) by Social Science Students (SSS) in the University of Benin, Nigeria.
Methods: A prospective cross-sectional survey was carried out in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Benin, Benin City, and Nigeria. Open and close ended questionnaires made up of 40 items on demographic, knowledge of LD, types of LD used by participants, frequency of use, quantity of LD used and reasons for the use of lifestyle drugs was administered to 400 participants.
Results: Out of 400 students that filled the self-administered questionnaire 210 (52.50%) were males and majority were single (91.25%) and between 18 -24 years. High proportion of respondents (45.2%) was not aware of LD drugs even if they had used them before. Caffeine was the drug commonly used by respondents with 85% admitting taking it while65.3% used nutritional supplements. Other LD with high frequency of usage were topical skin lightening drugs (45%), alcohol (41.5%) and narcotics (31%). Majority of respondents habitually used caffeine, Nicotine, Alcohol, Cannabis, and Codeine for recreational purpose. Only 3.7% of oral contraceptive users did so with a prescription, while 10% used them for lifestyle modification. Some males (3.2%) who used drugs for sexual enhancement were given a prescription for those drugs, while other users did not get any prescription. About 16.2% of respondents used topical creams because they received prescription for them, 29.2% used these creams for lifestyle modification. Most participants who used nutritional supplements solely did so to modify their lifestyle.
Conclusion: Many Social Science Students of the University of Benin lacked knowledge of lifestyle drugs as many of them are not familiar with the term LD even when they frequently use them without prescription. Majority of the students used one or more lifestyle drugs for aesthetic, recreational and lifestyle modification purposes. Thus, there is need for awareness programs to enlighten students on proper view and uses of lifestyle drugs
