The indiscriminate use of cocaine associated with other illicit drugs by undergraduate Brazilian students.
Authors: Latrônico Alice Messias Amaral , Miranda Renato Pricoli , Ilg Helena Bossolla , Taricano Ingrid Dragan 
Published: June 2021

The purpose of this study was to examine rates and patterns of illicit drug (cocaine e.g.), tobacco and alcohol use among Brazilian university undergraduates. With the rise of illicit and street drugs on college campuses, students are faced with a choice to use drugs during their academic careers, including cocaine. Academic students are at‐risk population for substance‐related problems, and a critical step in prevention and treatment programming is the detection of trends of use throughout time, allowing one to choose which future actions should be taken. Cocaine is a highly addictive stimulant drug and that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant or artificially synthesized. Cocaine directly affects the central nervous system and induces increased heart rate, blood pressure, euphoric feelings, hyperactivity, alertness, and competence upon intake.

METHODOLOGY

The instrument used for data collection was Google Forms™. The instant addition of responses to the data set makes this medium appealing for research purposes. Additionally, the respondents involved in the study has been regularly using Google Forms™, and it was therefore considered the most appropriate method for data collection. The results of the survey was statistically analyzed. Within the various areas the group of students from medical, biology, nurse, engineering, architect, psychology, and other courses were chosen had experience of using these tools.

RESULTS

Data obtained showed that in a sample of 907 students 346 (39,1%) was from health courses, 268 (29,5%) from humane sciences, 268 (29,5%) from engineering, architect courses and 25 (2,8%) biological sciences. Inside this 44 (4,9 %) people are frequently cocaine users despite this fact only 12 (1,3%) of respondents classify themselves as dependents and 305 (33,6%) no dependents.

CONCLUSIONS

The consumption of alcohol, legal and illegal drugs and tobacco in the university population is growing and became a source of worry in many countries, included Brazil. The passage from high school to college is commonly marked by an increment in frequency of opportunities for peer interaction and in importance of the role of peer norms. Special attention about these people is necessary for prevention mechanisms to be useful, particularly, the biological sciences students in relation to alcohol and other drugs use, since in the future, they are going to be the ones who will bring basic notions of health to the community. This work was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration. CAAE(Br)67881517.1.0000.5511. All participants had full understanding and signed informed consent document

The consumption of alcohol, legal and illegal drugs in the university population is growing1–2 and became a source of worry in many countries. The passage from high school to college is commonly marked by an increment in frequency of opportunities for peer interaction and in importance of the role of peer norms.2 Direct (or active) peer influences explicitly focus on getting a person to drink.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.