Abstract
BackgroundKhat has amphetamine like effect. Students chew khat to stay alert. It has various negative physical, mental, social and cognitive effects. Poor academic performance has been associated with khat. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and identify factors associated with khat chewing among Ethiopian University students.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted on Bahir Dar University Students. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 3268 students. Proportion was calculated to estimate prevalence of khat chewing. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with khat chewing.ResultsLifetime prevalence of khat chewing was 24% (95% Confidence Interval: 22.5%, 26.6%). Half of these are current khat users with a prevalence of 12.7% (95% Confidence Interval: 11.5%, 13.9%). Male students Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 3.3 (95% Confidence Interval: 1.8, 6.0), students living in off campus housing AOR = 3.0 (95% Confidence Interval: 1.5, 6.0), students who have khat user friends AOR = 4.2 (95% Confidence Interval: 2.6, 6.9), and students who perceive khat use improves academic performance AOR = 6.6 (95% Confidence Interval: 4.6, 9.5) are more likely to use khat.ConclusionsPrevalence of current use of khat reported in this study is higher than recent study done on university students in Ethiopia and heavily influenced with peer practice.
Highlights
Study area A cross sectional study was conducted among University students of Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia, in June 2012
A total of 3,872 students were invited to participate in the study and of which 3,268 completed and returned the self-administered questionnaire
The overall prevalence of lifetime khat use is 24.0%
Summary
It has various negative physical, mental, social and cognitive effects. Khat is a plant with amphetamine like characteristics with effects including insomnia, euphoria, decreased fatigue and suppressed appetite when chewed [1]. Frequent and chronic khat use has been associated with various consequences. These include substance dependency [2], early sexual debut [3] unprotected sex [4] mental health issues [5,6] and with various social, cognitive and financial problems [7,8,9,10]. A separate study estimated prevalence of khat use in the general population of Ethiopia was 27.3% among men and 11.0% among women of 15–49 years in 2011 [11]
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