Étude comparative de l’attirance, la fréquence et l’intensité des conduites addictives chez les étudiants et les étudiantes

Abstract

Objectives When facing to the stressful conditions of the academic living style, students seem to develop various addictive behaviours. These behaviours sometimes correspond to the use of a substance, sometimes to an addictive practice without any substance. Addictive behaviours are identified as a major public health problem and may occur for every student. However, differences are observed according to their gender. These differences mainly concern the prevalence, the reasons of use, and the psychological comorbidities, etc. Consequently, the aim of this study was to assess the male and female students’ addictive behaviour referring to three additional criteria: the attraction with the addictive behaviour, the incidence and the intensity of addictive behaviours with and without substances. These criteria have been estimated for three addictive behaviours related to substance use (alcohol, tobacco and cannabis) and three addictive behaviours without any substance (sport practice, the Internet use, and eating behaviours). These addictive behaviours are considered as the most frequently reported for the students. Procedure and participants The attraction, incidence and intensity of the seven addictive behaviours have been estimated with the different specific versions of the Intensity of Addictive Behaviours Assessment Questionnaire (Décamps, Battaglia et Idier, sous presse [11]). The seven specific versions of the questionnaire was administered to a 354-students sample, composed with 281 girls (79,4 %) and 73 boys (20,6 %). The order of the seven questionnaires was randomised. Results The comparison between male and female students revealed that the use of tobacco failed to reach statistical significance for the attraction, incidence and intensity score. This addictive behaviour is the only one that appears indistinctly between the two groups of students. The main results stated that most of the other forms of addiction seem to be more specific of either the male students or the female. The male students generally reported higher scores for alcohol use, cannabis use and sport practice than the female. Contrarily, addictive eating behaviours are more frequently reported for the female students. Conclusion According to the differences observed between male and female students’ addictive behaviours, the results emphasise the importance of gender-specific actions of prevention and specific care for the consequences of such any addictions.