Background: The use of illicit drugs is becoming a popular habit amongst young people; drug use has been linked to challenges in our modern society. Depression, family factors and lifestyle factors especially failure to attain normal adulthood role in the community are important predictors for youth engaging in illicit drug use. Currently there have been some drastic measures that have been taken to curb the use of illicit drugs in Tanzania. Despite continuous campaigns or raising awareness on drug use, we still see the increase in the trends of drug use amongst adolescents. Thus, in the current study I have addressed the determination of knowledge, attitudes and barriers towards treatment options amongst youth.
Methods: This was a prospective descriptive cross-sectional study involving high school students recruited from selected secondary schools in Mwanza city. A structured questionnaire was used to capture data from the participants. Data are presented as frequency and percentages in tables and pies charts.
Results: Most of youth showed good to fair knowledge and attitude on illicit drugs use and on treatment options. Factors that influenced illicit drug use were, friends and peers as well as easy availability of illicit drugs. Among the participants, 16% were using illicit drugs, 96% stopped using whilst 4% were still using. Majority of the respondents (96.7%) were aware of the dangers and barriers towards the treatment options. Knowledge wise 49.7% had scored good, 45% scored fair and 5.3% scored poor. 37% of participants did not show awareness of treatment centers and 34% due not knowing the importance in seeking treatment. Regardless that 90% reported good adherence on treatment results in good prognosis and help one recover from substance abuse.
Conclusion: Despite good knowledge and awareness on untoward effects of using illicit drugs, there are still ongoing use of illicit drugs. This observation warrants the needs in implementations of health education on illicit drugs to youth, policies, law and regulations to address and control illicit drugs use. Influence from friends beings the most powerful drive to engage in drug use due to misleading information on illicit drugs. Hence much effort should be integrated on proper community mass educational program on health effects of illicit drugs use, as well as the creation of facility centers for treatment and education of individual as key in management of burden of illicit drug use.