Prevalence and Determinants of Alcohol Use Among Secondary School Students in Nairobi County

Abstract

Alcoholuse is one of the major challenges facing the world today and is becoming an increasing problem in Kenya. A number of studies carried out in the country show that almost every Kenyan youth at one time or another, experiments with drugs, especially alcohol. The aim of the study was to find out the prevalence and determinants of alcohol use among secondary school students inNairobi County, Kenya. The findings of the study are going tohelp explain why school going children consume alcohol. The objectives of the study were to examine the causes of alcohol use by secondary school students, to determine the prevalence of alcohol use, to identify the strategies used in secondary schools to address alcohol use. Theories such as social learningtheory by Banduraand optimistic bias theory guided the study. The study employed cross sectional design study and the target population was 21555 students enrolled in 60 public secondary school but only students from day mixed secondaryschools participated in the study. The accessible population was form four students from the schools that were selected. Purposive and simple random sampling wasused to select day district mixed secondary schools from the 8 constituencies of NairobiCounty. Therefore eight day district secondary schools were picked. Systematic sampling was applied to obtain the required number of students, where every 4th student from the school register was selected. Four counselingteachers fromthe sampled school were purposivelyselected to participate in the study. The total number of respondents was 216 students and 4 counseling teachers. A questionnaire for students and akey informant guide for counseling teacherswere used to collect data. The data obtained was coded and analyzed using SPSS program and presented in tables and charts. The key findings showed that alcohol use is still high with a prevalence rate of 32.4% and also found that peer pressure, family environment and age contributed to students’ alcohol use. It was also found that Moon walker, Blue moon and Meakins were the most used types of alcohol, and that boys consume alcohol more than girls. The study recommends that parents, family members should not use alcohol in front of their children as they are seen as role models by their children and that counseling services be strengthened in schools.