Risk and protection factors for drug use among salvadoran university students, year 2007

Abstract

Drug use is multicausal, including the availability and drug trafficking that proliferates in the country, it depends largely on the lack of prevention focused on strengthening values, attitudes, concerns and skills from home, school and State. In-depth interviews were conducted with experts on the subject and in writing with a sample of 382 students, stratified in 8 universities. According to the analysis of indicators studied, it is noted that around a third of the population is at imminent risk: individual family and socioeconomic insecurity, among others. Advertising induces the adoption of inappropriate behaviors and the consumption of legal and illegal drugs and all kinds of vices. If high is added; that the University prioritizes professional instruction and very little comprehensive education; an inversely proportional relationship of risk and protection factors is generated: while the wearing down of protective factors such as the practice of values, among others, is encouraged, the increase of risk factors of all kinds is allowed and with it the consumption of psychoactive substances. Given the growing risk, it is noted that the response of the University, family and State must be immediate.