Abstract

RUEDA-JAIMES, Germán Eduardo; CAMACHO LOPEZ, Paul Anthony; RANGEL-MARTINEZ-VILLALBA, Andrés Mauricio  and  DUARTE PINEDA, Eliana. Prevalence of Substance Use in Middle and High School Students in Bucaramanga (Colombia) and Metropolitan Area. rev.colomb.psiquiatr. [online]. 2008, vol.37, n.2, pp.195-206. ISSN 0034-7450.

Introduction: Adolescence is the period of highest risk for starting the use of substances, with short and long term complications. The prevalence of substance use has risen in Latin-American countries. Objective: To establish the prevalence of substance use in children and adolescents who are attending school in Bucaramanga and metropolitan area in Colombia. Method: Descriptive transectional study with a random sample of about 2916 adolescent students. Results: The mean age of the students was 14.4 years (SD 1.65); 49.88% were men. An annual prevalence for legal substances of 2.75% was observed (excluding alcohol and tobacco), whereas the annual prevalence for illegal substances use was 3.81%. The annual prevalence for alcohol use was 66.39%, 0.76% for bazuco, 1.35% for cocaine, 1.28 for stimulants, 1.59% for ecstasy, 0.45% for heroin, 0.8% for inhalants, 2.64% for marihuana, and 1.62% for tranquillizers. Conclusion: The use of legal and illegal substances in school students from Bucaramanga was high and started early in life. Alcohol is still the most used substance followed by tobacco. Marihuana was the illegal substance used the most, and we established the consolidation of the use of substances like ecstasy and the emergence of heroin use in children and adolescents. The use of substances in women tended to match the use in men.

Keywords : child; adolescent; prevalence; noxae.

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