High school students' attitudes towards addictive substances and investigation of the variables affecting these attitudes (Malatya city sample)

For a society to be able to keep on existing prosperously is closely related with a strong personality among its youth and their ability to use it. Those societies whose members are in a struggle to sustain efficiently their existence and to yield products of high quality in line with their goals, are required to apply the best manners of child raising and take every and any measures to protect them against harmful habits. Recent increasing trends in drug trafficing and, as one natural consequence, drug addiction are apparently regarded to threaten young people. Especially some misconceptions and attitudes leading youth to drug addiction take place at early stages of this threat. True knowledge and attitude as to the harms of these substances which cause individual or social depression both in terms of health and social life can only be provided by parents through some correct instruction about students? direct environment involving school and safety. This study aims to analyze the attitudes of the high schools students in the centre of the province of Malatya towards addictive substances, the variables affecting their attitudes, and the relationship between the ?Democratic?, ?Authoritarian?, and ?Protective? attitudes of the parents towards their children and the attitudes of the high schools students towards addictive substances. It is also intended to produce suggestions, based on the findings from this study, about the necessary measures to take in order to foster the negative attitudes of the high school students towards addictive substances and eliminate the misconceptions causing some positive attitudes thus having the students develop negative attitudes towards addictive substances. The population of the study comprises a total of 25470 students, with 13874 boys and 11596 girls, who attended the high schools located in Malatya city center during 2004- 2005 school year. The participants of the study comprise 745 students, including 330 females and 445 males, selected from 13 schools in the city center using random cluster sampling method. The medium to collect data has three parts. The first part of the questionnaire involves items about students? personal information. In the second part of the medium II ?The Attitude Scale Regarding the High School Students? Attitudes towards Addictive Substances (ASRHSSATAS), which was developed by the researcher, was used. And last part includes the Parents Attitudes Scale developed by Kuzgun and Eldeleklioğlu (2005). The findings from the research indicate that the high school students in Malatya city centre have negative attitudes towards addictive substances ( X =202,61 -min:45; max:225). Some significant differences were observed between high school students? attitudes towards addictive substances in terms of variables including gender, age and grade. Compared with girls, boys were found to have more positive views about addictive substances ( X b=197,7; X g=208,8). Of the students from 15 to 19 of age, older ones were observed to have more positive attitudes towards addictive substances (15 year-olds X = 206,5 19 year-olds X = 198,6). According to grades, a significant difference was observed between attitudes of 1st graders ( X =206,7 ), 2nd graders ( X = 201,8 ) and 3rd grades ( X = 199,1 ) towards addictive substances in favor of students at higher grades (D=7,47; p< ,05). In another word 3rd graders were found to have more positive attitudes towards addictive substances compared to 2nd and 1st graders. No difference was found between the students? attitudes towards addictive substances in terms of the variables including whether their parents live together or not, their parents? educational status, professions, and number of siblings. The correlation between high school students? negative attitudes towards addictive substances and democratic parental attitudes was found r=.29; for authoritarian parental attitudes it was found r= - .27; and lastly for protective parental attitudes correlation was r= -.09. In other words democratic attitudes by parents imply a linear correlation with students? negative attitudes towards addictive substances, while authoritarian and protective attitudes by parents are adversely correlated with the students? negative attitudes towards addictive substances.