A Study to determine the prevalence of Alcohol consumption among Engineering College Students and to assess their knowledge and attitude regarding Alcohol Consumption and its ill effects in selected Private Engineering Colleges of Rajasthan

Mr. Maneesh Kumar Sharma

Lecturer, Saroj Lalji Mehrotra Global Nursing College, Aburoad, Rajasthan

*Corresponding Author’s Email: maneesh261288@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Background: Alcoholism is a worldwide social and medical problem over the past 30-40 years. Alcohol consumption has increased in quantity and frequency.Adolescent's substance use and abuse remain serious concern regarding today’s youth. Alcohol is the most commonly used recreational drug.

Objectives: (1) To determine the prevalence of alcohol consumption among engineering college students. (2) To assess the knowledge of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects. (3) To assess the attitude of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects. (4) To find out the relationship between knowledge and attitude of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects. (5) To find out the association between knowledge of engineering college students with selected factors. (6) To determine the association between attitude of engineering college students with selected factors.

Material and Methods: A Non-experimental, Descriptive co-relational survey design was used for the study. Data was collected from 100 male engineering students of 2^nd and 3^rd year of selected private engineering colleges. Convenient sampling was used for selecting the colleges and simple random sampling was used for selecting the samples. Structured knowledge questionnaire and likert attitude scale was used for data collection. Results: Majority (53%) of the engineering college students had average knowledge regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects. There was significant positive correlation (0.39)between knowledge and attitude of the engineering college students. There was significant relationship between knowledge and selected demographic factors with family history of alcoholism and educational status of father. There was significant relationship between attitude and selected demographic factors with family income, occupation of father, family history of alcoholism and educational status of father.

Conclusion: Nowadays drinking alcohol has become a new trend among the college students. Alcohol is not an ordinary commodity but a toxic substance in terms of its direct and indirect effects on a wide range of body organs and systems. Nursing personnel can educate and counsel students and general population to change their attitude regarding alcohol consumption and help them to stop consuming alcohol.

KEYWORDS: Alcohol, Knowledge, Attitude.

INTRODUCTION:

Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused substance by youth. Alcohol and drugs also contribute to assaults and rapes by adolescents. Nearly all high school seniors report some experience with alcohol. Higher levels of adolescent alcohol are associated with the three most forms of mortality which is accidental deaths, homicides and suicides among adolescents. Nearly 9 out 10 teenage automobile accidents involve the use of alcohol. Alcohol use has also been characterized as a gateway substance, preceding the use of Marijuana and other illegal substances such as Cocaine and Heroin.¹

Alcoholism is a worldwide social and medical problem over the past 30-40 years. Alcohol consumption has increased in quantity and frequency. The age at which people start drinking has also declined. The population group at great risk is those undergoing rapid socioeconomic and cultural changes; they view alcohol as a symbol of prestige and social status.²

According to Kaplan (2001),a recent survey showed that drinking was a significant problem for 0 to 20% of adolescents. In United States, there are three million problem drinkers and 300,000 adolescents with alcohol dependence in the age range of 13 to 17 years.³

Alcohol has marked effect on the central Nervous system. It is not stimulant as long believed but a primary and continuous depressant. Alcohol damages body tissues by irritating them directly, through changes that occur during its metabolism.⁴

A study was conducted by Anuradha G. (2007) to assess the knowledge and attitude of college students regarding alcoholism in selected colleges at Udupi district in 2007. It was found that 40% of the students started consuming alcohol at the age of 18 years. With regard to attitude, forty-five percent had unfavorable attitude towards alcohol use and thirty percent had average level of knowledge. After an awareness programme, the knowledge level increased to 56% compared to the 35% at the previous level.⁵

Rutledge P.C, Park A, Sher K. J. (2009)reported that Alcohol use often begins in adolescence or earlier. One of the studies reported that there is a high probability of alcohol consumption on the 21^st birthday among college students who have experienced alcohol intoxication between entering the college and turning 21.⁶

Bimla Kapoor (2002)reported that Small dose of alcohol can produce euphoria, drowsiness, dizziness, flushing, larger dose of alcohol can produce an aggressive and violent behaviour, staggering of gait, double vision, and Excessive consumption of alcohol may produce headache, nausea, shakiness and vomiting within 8 to 12 hours.⁷

Media Vision India (2004), reported that in India it has been estimated, 40-50% of all males drink alcohol as compared to less than 1% female adults, so alcoholism appears to be predominantly a male disorder especially in India. Because of the influence of urbanization, peer pressure, westernization, media curiosity and age the college students are more prone to alcohol abuse.⁸

With professional and personal experiences, investigator came across many tragic incidents in the life of alcoholic person and their family members, like negligence of self and dependents, frequent quarrels and assaults, tendency to steal, and misuse of money at work place, dropout of college going students, antisocial activities, accidents involving vehicles and machinery, loss of respect by family members, relatives and society leading to self pity, shame, guilt and suicides. College students in those families have also been seen to indulge in addiction, in turn to antisocial activities like rape, robbery and rowdism. Therefore, the investigator felt the need to undertake the study to assess the knowledge and attitude of engineering college student on alcohol consumption and its ill effects, which will help nursing personnel to educate and counsel students and general population to change their attitude regarding alcohol consumption and help them to stop consuming alcohol.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

1. To determine the prevalence of alcohol consumption among engineering college students.

2. To assess the knowledge of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects.

3. To assess the attitude of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects.

4. To find out the relationship between knowledge and attitude of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects.

5. To find out the association between knowledge of engineering college students with selected factors.

6. To determine the association between attitude of engineering college students with selected factors.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:

Research design and approach:

Descriptive co-relational survey design

Setting of the study:

Selected Private Engineering Colleges, Sirohi District, Rajasthan

Population:

Engineering students in selected Private Engineering Colleges in Sirohi, Rajasthan.

Sampling technique:

Simple random sampling technique by lottery method was used to select an adequate size of the sample. Convenient sampling was used to select college and branch of engineering for the present study

Sample size:

100 male engineering college students from 2^nd and 3^rd year

Inclusion criteria:

1. The engineering college students who were willing to participate in the study.

2. The engineering college students who were available during the period of data collection.

3. The engineering college students who were able to communicate either in Hindi or English.

4. The engineering college students who were studying in 2^ndand 3^rdyear.

Tool and technique:

Section A- Socio demographic variables of Engineering students

Section B- Questions to determine the prevalence of alcohol consumption among engineering college students. It comprised 11 items regarding incidence, duration, quantity, reason, situation, problem, frequency of alcohol consumption. A structure knowledge questionnaire was developed to assess the knowledge of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects after extensive study of literature and discussion with experts. It consists of 30 items.

Section C- An attitude scale of 20 items was developed to assess the attitude of the engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects. Statements on the attitude scale were stated in positive and negative way equally. It was a five point Likert type of scale which included five responses for each statement i.e. strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree.

Data collection procedure:

Prior to data collection, formal administrative permission was obtained from the concerned authority to conduct the final study and informed consent was obtained from samples. Before administration of tool, the purpose of study was explained to the samples. The instructions on the tool were made clear to facilitate the cooperation. The questionnaires were issued to the samples and instructed to fill it. Adequate time was provided to complete the questionnaires (45-60 min).The researcher helped the samples to understand the questions for obtaining the correct responses.

Data analysis:

Descriptive statistics like mean, SD, mean percentage was used for description of demographic characteristics and assessment of knowledge and attitude. Inferential statistics like chi-square test was used to find out the association between knowledge and attitude with demographic variables.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Section A:

Description of socio-demographic data of Engineering students:

Majority (68%) of the subjects belonged to urban residence. maximum 57 (57%) of engineering college students belonged to joint family. Maximum of their fathers (29%) were doing private service and maximum of their mothers (40%) were professionals. Data regarding percentage of marked obtained in previous year, majority (58%) obtained 61-70%. As regard to family history of alcoholism, maximum (34%) of grandfathers of engineering college students had history of alcohol consumption. Maximum (26%) number of student’s fathers of engineering students had education upto graduation and maximum (26%) mothers of engineering college students had education upto higher secondary school level (12^th standard).Majority(62%) of engineering students did not consume alcohol while (38%) of them consumed alcohol.

Section B:

Knowledge scores among engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects

Table 1: Frequency and percentage distribution of knowledge scores among engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects N=100

Sl. No	Level of knowledge	Scores	Frequency	Percentage (%)
1.	Good	21-30	21	21
2.	Average	11-20	53	53
3.	Poor	1-10	26	26

Table-1 shows that majority (53%) of engineering college students had average knowledge, (26%) of them had poor knowledge and only (21%) had good knowledge.

Section C Attitude scores of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects.

Figure 1- Bar diagram showing percentage distribution among engineering college students in terms of level of attitude scores

Figure 1 shows that majority (64%) had unfavourable attitude towards alcohol consumption and its ill-effects and only (36%) had favourable attitude towards alcohol consumption and its ill-effects. The present study findings showed that majority of the engineering college students had average knowledge and had unfavourable attitude towards alcohol consumption and its ill effect. The findings of this study are to some extent consistent with the study conducted by Anuradha G. (2007), in which forty-five percent had unfavourable attitude towards alcohol use and thirty percent had average level of knowledge.⁵

Section D

Relationship between the knowledge and attitude scores of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill effects

Table 2:Co-efficient of correlation (r) between the knowledge scores and attitude scores of engineering college students N=100

Sl.No

Variable

Mean

‘r’

Knowledge scores

16.96

5.46

*0.39

Attitude scores

72.69

9.20

df( 98 ) =0.197 Significant at 0.05 level *significance at 0.05 level

Table 2 shows that coefficient of correlation between knowledge scores and attitude scores of engineering college students regarding alcohol consumption and its ill-effects was (0.39) suggesting a positive significant correlation between the knowledge scores and attitude scores as obtained ‘r’ value was more than the table value (0.197) with df(98) at 0.05 level of significance. The investigator concluded that higher the level of knowledge, more unfavourable attitude towards alcohol consumption and its ill-effects among engineering college students.

Section E

Association between knowledge of engineering college students with selected factors.

Sl.No	Variables	χ² Value	Df	Table Value	Level of significance
1	Age in years	0.60	3	7.82	Not Significant
2	Type of family	2.8	2	5.99	Not Significant
3	Family history of alcoholism	25.05	6	12.59	Highly Significant
4	Educational status of father	12.15	5	11.07	Significant

Sl.No	Variables	χ² Value	Df	Table Value	Level of significance
1	Age in years	2.76	3	7.82	Not Significant
2	Type of family	1.5	2	5.99	Not Significant
3	Family income per month	10.36	3	7.82	Significant
4	Occupation of father	14.74	4	9.49	Significant
5	Family history of alcoholism	15.4	6	12.59	Significant
6	Educational status of father	13.66	5	11.07	Significant