Factors Influencing Drug Abuse Among Rural Secondary Students in Nyanaiya Division of Nyamira District, Kenya

Abstract

Many secondary school students in Kenya are nowadays experimenting with drugs. This is causing a lot of concern as drug abuse has been identified as a major cause of several of the problems experienced by secondary school students in Kenya which range from: declining educational standards to indiscipline and moral degmdation. This study aimed at finding out the factors influencing drug use and abuse among rural y secondary school snldents in Nyamaiya Division ofNyamim District. The study presentation has been arranged in five chapters. Chapter one addresses the background information, statement of the problem, research questions, significance and objectives of the study. Chapter two makes a review of relevant literature to the study while chapter three describes the methodology that was employed in sampling, collecting and analyzing the data. Chapter four has been dedicated to the presentation of the results of the study and chapter five discuses the results of the study and gives I the counselling and policy implications and suggestions for further research. The population selected for this study consisted ofform three secondary school s-tudents (N=80); their class teachers (No.4); the guidance and counselling teachers (N==4)and head teachers (N==4).Random sampling technique was used in the selection of students while the teachers were selected using purposive sampling. The tools selected for data collection were self-report questionnaires for students and i-rn-. tervie__w schedules for teachers. The researcher personally administered the questionnaires to students and interviewed teachers using pre-prepared interview schedules. These tools covered all the broad VI dimensions set by the study's exploratory questions. Descriptive statistics was used to organize data to answer the three research questions of the study. The data is presented in tables indicating frequencies, percentages and ranks; while visual presentation of the same data is done using figures. Due to the nature of this research, the technique chosen for testing the hypotheses investigated was the chi-square tl) method. All tests of significance were done at the alpha ( a ) level of 0.05. The results ofthe study show that home made alcohol- changaa and busaa were the most abused drugs and there was a significant difference between the abuse of these brews and other drugs. It was also established that drug abuse is most prevalent in mixed schools and least prevalent in girls boarding schools. It was also discovered that the major contributing factors in drug abuse were availability of drugs and peer pressure. These results were noted for their counselling and policy implications. The implications were then translated into general recommendations and suggestions for further research. In this study, the 'prima facie' sources of information were the students. Teachers provided complementary infurmation. Other important sources included published literature and previous researches relevant to this study.