Abstract
The purpose of this paper is the epidemiological analysis of alcohol, tobacco and Internet use addiction data among Physical Education and Sport Faculty students of the West University, Timisoara, Romania. Epidemiological investigation was conducted in May 2010 on a group of 79 students, using standardized questionnaires (CAGE, FAGERSTRÖM, AUDIT, INTERNET addiction questionnaire). Of the total students number enrolled in research, 77.22% responded to the questionnaires, with a mean age of 21.1 ± 2.252 (age limits are between 19 and 33 years), the majority (67.21%) were male and in the first year of study. Statistical data analysis was done using IBM SPSS 17.0 program, being considered statistically significant values of p <0.01.In the CAGE questionnaire case 21.31% of students were identified with positive screening test, the majority (11.48%) were male and came from the first year (16.39%). FAGERSTRÖM questionnaire reveals a score of 2.76 ± 2.917 for the first year and 0.96 ± 2.121 for the third year. INTERNET addiction questionnaire reveals a score of 22.03 ± 13.16 in the first year and 15.28 ± 22.96 in the third year. AUDIT questionnaire revealed an average score of 3.45 ± 3.652 in the first year and 2.74 ± 3.048 in the third year. After comparing the INTERNET use, AUDIT and FAGERSTRÖM questionnaires results, between the first and third years of study, we obtained a p> 0.01 (statistically insignificant), and when comparing CAGE questionnaire results, we obtained a statistically significant p (p = 0.01). After analyzing the data obtained through questionnaires, we observed a predominant use of all types of addictions (alcohol, tobacco, and Internet use) among first year students and at male gender.
Highlights
It is known from literature that both excessive alcohol consumption and smoking have negative repercussions in terms of morbidity and mortality
Epidemiological investigation used a series of standardized questionnaires: for alcohol addiction - AUDIT questionnaire - „Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test“ - a 10-item questionnaire developed by Saunders, Aasland, Babor, de la Fuente, & Grant (1993), for tobacco addiction - CAGE questionnaire, a 4 items questionnaire (Ewing, 1984) and Fagerström questionnaire - a 10-item questionnaire, developed by Fagerström (Fageström, & Schneider, 1989; Fageström, 2003), and for Internet addiction, a 20 items questionnaire, „Internet Addiction Test” – IAT (Widyanto, & McMurran, 2004)
In the CAGE questionnaire case was found that of all surveyed students, 62.3% were in the first year and 37.7% were in the third year of study
Summary
It is known from literature that both excessive alcohol consumption and smoking have negative repercussions in terms of morbidity and mortality. Alcohol dependence implies the existence of primary and secondary symptoms. Primary symptoms include the desire to drink, increased tolerance to alcohol, long periods alcohol consumption (despite the desire to stop or control it), significant time spent on the purchase and alcohol consumption, waiver of work-related and social environment problems for alcohol consumption and continuous alcohol consumption, despite the health problems caused by it. Tobacco use is an important risk factor for a variety of diseases (respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, musculoskeletal and immune system diseases) affecting almost every organ in the human body, having negative effects on intrauterine fetal development and pregnancy, more (Trofor, & Radu-Loghin, 2004), affecting the health of non-smokers exposed to passive smoking (Didilescu, & Marica, 2009). Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds, and nicotine is the psychoactive component that creates dependency. (Trofor, & Mihaescu, 2007)
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