The purpose of the study was to obtain a psychosocial profile of a group of secondary school children in Penang as an attempt to understand the background of potential drug users in schools. More specifically the study attempted to compare the background and some characteristics of the drug users and the non-drug users in school.
The major findings related to the general pattern on substance use for the full sample are: 73% of the Penang upper secondary school children have never taken any form of soft drugs (cigarettes and alcohol) or hard drugs (prescription drugs from either legal or illegal sources like tranquillizers, barbiturates and stimulants, as well as illegal drugs like opium, cannabis and heroin). Use patterns show that only a small minority of hard drug users was frequent or polydrug users, a greater number were occasional monodrug users using drugs on experimental basis. Alcohol and cigarettes have remained as the most commonly used soft drugs by secondary school children. A larger proportion of students using hard drugs tended to smoke and/or drink. The average age of initiation for smoking and using hard drugs is 16 years and above. Drug abuse adolescents tended to report low religiosity and poor relationship with their families. Large variability in school performance of hard drug users was noted; they have a lower general self-concept, lower value on moral-self, family-self and behaviour. There was no difference in anxiety level between drug users and non-users. Attempts to relate locus of control with substance-abuse behaviour found no significant relationship between the two variables. However, the trend revealed that drug users tended to be more externally controlled compared to non-users. Finally in comparing psychological needs, the study revealed that drug users tended to be more achieving, impulsive, aggressive, dominating, attention-seeking, to engage in fantasized-achievement and take greater risks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment