Abstract:
Background:
Drug abuse is a significant social problem and public health concern. A change in philosophy and direction to make drug abuse a medical problem is needed. It should start with positive change of mindset of the healthcare providers. Accurate information must be cascaded to communities to fill the great gap between scientific evidence and perception on drug abuse and addiction.
Objectives:
To determine the medical student's beliefs, attitudes, and agreement with treatment towards drug abuse. Their beliefs and attitudes may influence their perceptions of individual with drug use disorders, ability to use specific intervention techniques, and likelihood of consenting to treatment strategies.
Materials and Methods:
This is a cross-sectional study carried out in the International Medical University, using self-administered questionnaire. Samples were selected by simple random sampling using Microsoft Excel. Section A consists of four demographics items. Section B comprised of 12-items of attitude subscales questionnaire, Section C comprised of 7-items of belief subscales questionnaire, and Section D comprised of 5-items on agreement to treatment questionnaire. The independent variable is agreeing to drug abusers deserve treatment. The dependent variable is disease and psychosocial model beliefs.
Statistical Analysis: Data was analysed using Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Demographics data were analysed for frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation (SD). PROCESS macro for SPSS was utilised for mediation analysis.
Results:
95 medical students participated. Scores for beliefs in disease and psychosocial models, and attitudes towards drug abuse were middling-to-high. Relationship between beliefs and outcome of agreeing to drug abusers deserving treatment was mediated by attitudes towards drug abusers. More exposures in clerking and observing drug abuse cases leads to less negative attitudes towards the abusers
Conclusions:
Medical students in clinical year of the IMU is not ready to be the change agent to promote drug abuse and addiction as a medical disease. More teaching and learning activities with additional clinical contact hours will help to build positive attitudes among these medical students.
Key Words:
Substance use disorders, Substance abuse, Drug dependence, Disease model, Psychosocial model
