Drug Addiction among Youth in Bangladesh: Causes, Consequences and Prevention Strategies

An understanding of problem substance use in young adults will involve a combination of social, emotional, material, and access-to-support factors. In the present study, such relationships were explored among 300 participants aged 18-29 years old, who lived in urban areas of Dhaka Division, Bangladesh. Peer influence, dysfunctional family environment, psychological distress, socioeconomic strain, prevention and support, problematic substance use, and adverse consequences were included in a cross-sectional survey model. Seven hypotheses were tested, including a moderating effect of support access, by using partial least squares structural equation modelling. There was an association between problematic substance use and peer influence, family dysfunction, psychological distress, and socioeconomic strain. Prevention and support access were negatively associated with problematic use and also reduced the positive association between prevention and peer influence. There was a strong link between problematic substance use and consequences. The model accounted for 51.5% of the variance in problematic use and 45.8% of the variance in adverse consequences. The reliability and convergent validity also proved satisfactory with all heterotrait-monotrait ratios less than 0.85. These results point to: Coordinated prevention strategies that include peer environments, family relations, emotional distress, and available support. The findings are restricted to associations among participants in an urban sample of survey respondents who recently used non-medical substances. The measures do not make clinical diagnoses of addiction or substance use disorder but highlight difficulties and consequences.