Abdeta Tilahun, Tolessa Daniel, Adorjan Kristina, Abera Mubarek
Department of Psychiatry, School of Nursing and Midwifery, College of Medical and Health Sciences, Haramaya University, Harar, Ethiopia.
Department of Psychiatry, Medical College, Adama, Ethiopia.
BMC Psychiatry. 2017 Apr 17;17(1):142. doi: 10.1186/s12888-017-1284-4.
Recently, khat chewing has become a common practice among high school, college, and university students. Regular khat chewing is thought to be a predisposing factor for different physical and mental health problems. It can lead to absenteeism from work and classes. In Ethiopia, to our knowledge no published study has investigated khat withdrawal symptoms. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the prevalence, withdrawal symptoms, and associated factors of khat chewing among regular undergraduate students on the main campus of Jimma University in Ethiopia.
The institution-based, cross-sectional study was conducted in January 2016. Data were collected from 651 main campus regular undergraduate students with a structured, self-administered questionnaire, entered into Epidata 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for Windows. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to explore associations and identify variables independently associated with khat chewing.
The study found that the lifetime and current prevalence of khat chewing among students were 26.3% (95% CI: 24.3, 28.3) and 23.9% (95% CI: 21.94, 25.86), respectively. About 25.7% of students started chewing after joining university, and 60.5% of these students started during their first year. The main reason given for starting khat chewing was for study purposes (54.6%), followed by socialization purposes (42.3%). Among current khat chewers, 72.9% reported that they had chewed khat for 1 year or more and 68.2% reported that they had experienced various withdrawal symptoms. The most frequently reported withdrawal symptoms were feeling depressed, craving, and feeling fatigued. Being male, attending a place of worship daily/2-3 times per week, cannabis use, smoking cigarettes, and having family members currently chewing khat were independently associated with khat chewing.
This study found that large numbers of university students were currently chewing khat. In this study withdrawal symptoms and factors that significantly affect khat chewing were identified. Besides it gave new ideas regarding khat withdrawal symptoms in Ethiopia. It serves as a critical role of providing information to form rational foundation for public health policy, prevention and planning to bring change in contributing factors for Khat chewing. The finding will be serving as base line information for further study.
最近，恰特草咀嚼在高中生、大学生中已成为一种普遍行为。长期咀嚼恰特草被认为是导致各种身心健康问题的一个诱发因素。它会导致旷工和旷课。据我们所知，在埃塞俄比亚，尚无已发表的研究对恰特草戒断症状进行调查。因此，本研究旨在确定埃塞俄比亚吉姆马大学主校区正规本科生中恰特草咀嚼的流行率、戒断症状及相关因素。
2016年1月开展了这项基于机构的横断面研究。通过结构化的自填问卷从651名主校区正规本科生收集数据，录入Epidata 3.1并导出至Windows版SPSS 20。采用双变量和多变量逻辑回归来探讨关联并识别与恰特草咀嚼独立相关的变量。
研究发现，学生中恰特草咀嚼的终生患病率和当前患病率分别为26.3%（95%CI：24.3，28.3）和23.9%（95%CI：21.94，25.86）。约25.7%的学生在进入大学后开始咀嚼恰特草，其中60.5%的学生在第一年就开始了。开始咀嚼恰特草的主要原因是学习目的（54.6%），其次是社交目的（42.3%）。在当前的恰特草咀嚼者中，72.9%报告他们咀嚼恰特草已达1年或更长时间，68.2%报告他们经历过各种戒断症状。最常报告的戒断症状是感到沮丧、渴望和感到疲劳。男性、每天/每周2 - 3次去做礼拜、使用大麻、吸烟以及目前有家庭成员咀嚼恰特草与恰特草咀嚼独立相关。
本研究发现大量大学生目前正在咀嚼恰特草。该研究识别出了戒断症状以及显著影响恰特草咀嚼的因素。此外，它为埃塞俄比亚的恰特草戒断症状提供了新观点。它在为公共卫生政策、预防和规划提供信息以形成合理基础从而改变恰特草咀嚼的促成因素方面发挥着关键作用。该发现将作为进一步研究的基线信息。
