Prevalence of substance use among adolescents in urban slums of Belagavi

Introduction: The recent years have witnessed a substance abuse epidemic with serious health, social, economic, and political repercussions. Initially, a problem of the developed countries, but now has assumed alarming dimensions even in developing countries. India too has been caught in this vicious circle of substance abuse. Materials and Methods: Six hundred adolescents of age group between 10 and 19 years in the area of UHC Ram Nagar and Rukmini Nagar were interviewed with the help of predesigned and pretested questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: Out of 600 participants, 505 were males and 95 were females. The prevalence of substance use was found to be 71 (11.8%), with females having the highest prevalence (17.9%) than males (10.7%). Smokeless form of tobacco (78.87%) being the most common substance use followed by smoke form of tobacco (15.49%) and least (2.82%) with alcohol and ganja. Conclusion: Smokeless form of tobacco and smoke form being the most common form of substance abuse among adolescents in urban slum. Females had a higher prevalence of substance use than males.