The Overview Examination of the Factors Which Affect Substance Use and Addiction vis-à-vis Demographic Characteristics: A Case of Çukurova University Students

The objective of this study was to examine the overview of the students over the factors which affect the substance use and addiction in various faculties at Çukurova University in accordance with demographic characteristics. 24625 students studying in various faculties at Çukurova University for the academic year 2015-2016, 513 were selected using the convenience sampling method and 502 valid questionnaires were gathered from the students. Of the students, 47,2% were female, 52,8% were men. Average age was 22,31 years (SD=,31,min-max=18-32, mean=22). Of the students, 65,5% are smokers and 59% are using alcohol. Of the students 51,2% are both smoking and using alcohol, 26,7% are neither using alcohol nor smoking. In this study, variables such as gender, age, monthly average income, marital status, working status have been examined. Besides this, class, daytime-evening education, faculty, parental education, current residence, family structural status (live together/separate, dead), childhood residence were included in the study. As a result of the findings emerged from this study, factors having statistically significant difference were included to our study. Consequently, apart from gender and parental education, any significant difference has determined among the variables. Compared to women, men more support the factors like family reasons, diseases, socio-economic level, physical conditions and substance availability were effective about the factors which affect substance use and addiction. Students having parents with university education were found that they support the propositions more significantly than the others. According to the findings of this research, factors affecting substance use and addiction can be categorized as group of friends, seeing family member as a role model, authoritarian families, apathetic families, (family norms, family support and intra-family relations), psychological problems, economic potential of the family, physical conditions and substance availability. In conclusion, although factors pushing students to substance use and addiction have a complex structure, in general the factors can be stated as group of friends, family, the person himself/herself and environmental factors.