Investigation of addictive drug and substance use and risk factors: Hitit University case

The use of addictive drugs and substances poses a great threat to the individual and society in our country as well as all over the world. In addition to the addiction of legal and illegal substance use, irrational and abusing prescription drugs outside the control of a doctor can also develop addiction. The biopsychosocial model, in which many biological, psychological and social factors are effective in addictions, is a comprehensive addiction approach that is accepted today. Based on this approach, biological, psychological and social factors such as gender, childhood trauma, family problems, economic problems, living environment, the presence of a negative friend environment, and the presence of judicial processes can appear as risk factors associated with addictions or risky situations that are the result of addictions. Adolescence and young adult are critical period in the formation of addictions, as in other problems, the shortest way to reach a solution in addictions is to find the source of the problem. While finding the source of the problem, having information about the risk factors that lead to the use of addictive drugs and substances or the risks arising as a result of their use will help to prevent addictions before they occur or to work with addictions. In the studies conducted in the literature, it is seen that addictive drugs or addictive substances are generally studied separately, risk factors are generally investigated on a single or lesser dimension, and studies on addiction-related forensic processes are limited. It is thought that our study, in which many biopsychosocial dimensions are investigated in a wide range with a multidisciplinary approach, will contribute to the literature in this sense. Our study was completed with the participation of 548 volunteer students over the age of 18 who continue their education at Hitit University Vocational School of Social Sciences, Vocational School of Technical Sciences and Vocational School of Health Sciences. Participants were reached with the "Addictive Drug and Substance Use and Risk Factors" questionnaire prepared in Google Forms and data were collected through an online questionnaire. The descriptive and relational statistics of the obtained data were analyzed with the SPSS 22.0 program, and the p<0.05 value was accepted as statistically significant in the analyzes. In the study, statistically significant findings were reached in the analysis study conducted with gender, college attended, traumatic experience in childhood, family problems, economic problems, suicide attempt, having a negative friend group, being involved in a forensic incident and being a victim of a forensic event (p<0.05).