Effects of social interactions on psychoactive substance use by medical students

The results indicate that PS use can be reliably pre-dicted by PS use in high school. However, there are certain changes in PS use patterns that are caused by changes in living conditions. Young people who continued living with their parents had the lowest level of alcohol and marijuana use compared to those who had other living conditions. The biggest changes were observed in respondents who left home. The authors suggest that higher PS use is associated with lack of parents’ control 23 .

The role of social interactions of young people in developing a habit of PS use merits closer inspection due to the fact that environment (both family and academic) may affect biological and individual factors in different ways 14,[18][19][20][21][22] .
We analyzed the results of 880 students who were asked to fill in a special questionnaire related to PS use.
Alcohol use within the last 6 months was reported by 66.6% ± 1.6% of respondents. About half of them (51.2%) consumed alcohol sporadically, less than a half (42.7%) several times a month, 5.8% several times a week and 0.3% reported daily use.
Presented results indicate that 6.0% ± 0.8% of students used drugs. Drug use over the period of 6 months was more prevalent in males (10.6% ± 1.8%) than in females (3.8% ± 0.8%) (p < 0.01). Marijuana and hashish were the most common drugs among medical students who used drugs with 78% reporting using these substances. Other PS types were much less common with tranquilizers, amphetamines, mushrooms and ecstasy used by 8.3%, 5.1%, 5.1% and 3.5% of respondents, respectively.
Among social interaction aspects influencing PS use by students, family environment is the first to draw attention. Living apart from parents was associated with a significantly higher prevalence of smoking and alcohol consumption in contrast to living with them (p < 0.01). Apart from that, students living in dormitories reported higher rates of smoking and drinking than those living in a flat or a house (Table 1). The results indicate that PS use can be reliably predicted by PS use in high school. However, there are certain changes in PS use patterns that are caused by changes in living conditions. Young people who continued living with their parents had the lowest level of alcohol and marijuana use compared to those who had other living conditions. The biggest changes were observed in respondents who left home. The authors suggest that higher PS use is associated with lack of parents' control 23 .
Married people consumed alcohol more frequently than single ones (p < 0.05). This factor may be associated with financial aspects and certain individual risk factors. The results indicate that respondents who have to impose limits on some aspects of their lives due to financial problems (having to eat away from home, refrain from purchasing desired devices or appliances or skip on entertainment with friends) consumed alcohol 17% more frequently than their peers who faced no financial issues (p < 0.01).
Students who had family members abusing PSs were more frequent smokers (p < 0.05), drinkers (p < 0.01) and drug users (p < 0.01). Therefore, living in a family with no history of PS abuse may be considered a protective factor.
Difficulty in socialization and interaction with fellow students contributed to more frequent alcohol consumption. Among students who had healthy relationships with their group mates, the prevalence of alcohol consumption was 65.5%, and among students who failed to have rapport with their peers -77.9% (p < 0.05). Students who showed no in-terest in socializing with group mates consumed alcohol 20% more frequently and used drugs 4 times more often than those who established good communication with peers (p < 0.01). Communication problems with peers including fellow students were previously studied by other researchers 24 .
If student's self-esteem becomes too low, it may result in withdraw from the social group, stop attending classes and ignore social norms altogether as these factors are the reasons behind negative attitudes and critical feelings towards oneself. In that case, he/she starts to search a new social group which approves their deviant behavior. In cases such as this, PS use may become a means of improving self-esteem 25 .
Therefore, it can be concluded that only a multifaceted approach to PS use incorporating social aspects (educational and family in particular) will effectively decrease the influence of negative factors on medical students' health and lifestyle.