Substance Abuse and Addiction among Undergraduates in Nigerian Private Universities; Communicating Behavioural Change for Sustainable Human Development

Abstract

Substance abuse among youths and young adults in Nigeria has been a significant health problem that threatens sustainable human development. There are a number of studies that have looked into drug abuse among adolescents. Some of the studies reported that youths experiment with substance abuse at some point in their lifetime.  However, not so many of such researchers examined the implications of drug abuse on sustainable human development. This gap was the motivation for this study. The study explored substance abuse and addiction among undergraduates in Nigerian private universities; communicating behavioural change for sustainable human development. The study was premised on the self esteem, family, availability and proneness and developmental stages theories of drug abuse. Using the purposive sampling technique, the key informant interview was used to elicit information from 140 youths who are substance abusers in a private university in south west, Nigeria. Structured interview was also conducted to elicit additional information from the Student affairs officer of the said university. Findings reveal that substance abuse among youths has multi-causal elements. Besides, it was gathered that a lot of communication measures have been directed towards changing substance abusers’ behaviour. It was recommended that wholesome concerted efforts must be made to eradicate the menace for sustainable human development.