Abstract:

Introduction: In recent years there has been increasing abuse of medications for sexual dysfunction for recreational purpose, and the number is increasing daily without apparent reasons. The main concern was why does young men who are active and sexually health abuse these medications; therefore we decided to find the reason behind recreational use of sildenafil and other medications, to find magnitude of abuse among youth in our population and to find out what are other drugs which are used in combination with sildenafil.

Materials and Methods: This study was done in Mwanza region northern Tanzania where by young men of active sex age of 18-45 years from different universities and colleges were enrolled in the study. Self-administered questionnaires with closed and open ended questions were used as method for data collection and also interviews were done for those who could not read and write.

Results: 26.4% (37/140) young men have used sildenafil as their drug for sexual enhancement. It was observed that the magnitude of abuse was such that; 15.7% (22/140) have used once in their life time, 5% (7/140) have used twice in the same week, 2.9% (4/140) have claimed to be using once per week occasionally, 0.7% (1/140) have used three times in one week and 1.4% (2/140) have used in once in one month. Large population (52.9%) claimed to have used the drug due to influence from friends. The complication of traditional medicine was found to be (45%) which is twice as much as sildenafil abuse.

Conclusion; There is sildenafil abuse in our population also there is significant combination with other conventional medications and as well as traditional medicines.