Factors influencing alcohol abuse among the youth in Nyeri Central District, Kenya

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating factors influencing alcohol abuse amongst the youth. Alcohol abuse has resulted into adverse effects .In regard to this; there has been great effort to combat the situation. The government in particular has made effort to sensitize the entire society on the negative impact of alcohol abuse. The major concern is that the main victims of alcohol abuse, in Nyeri Central District are the youth. It was therefore necessary to carry out a study considering that the youth hold the future of communities and country at large; socially, economically and politically. A study was thus conducted within the municipality to get findings of the problem of alcohol abuse amongst the youth 15-45 years.

The study area was identified as Ruring'u Sub location. The study was well governed by Research methodology including: a descriptive cross sectional study, to collect information on factors influencing alcohol abuse. A population target of the youth (15-45) years was identified. A cluster sampling procedure of 1160 households in seven (7) villages were put under study. Eventually the number of youth respondents from each of the seven villages was identified giving a total of lOO respondents. A pretest was conducted before the main survey to establish the suitability of the questions in the interview schedule and time taken to interview on households. An interview schedule was used whereby open and close ended questions were used. An observation list was also used to investigate the factors that indicate that the youth do abuse alcohol. Reliability and validity of instruments was considered. Data collected was analyzed using mainly the descriptive statistics.

The main technique used to analyse data was correlation analysis that showed the amount of correlation between the variables through the regression technique. The research revealed that alcohol abuse is a real problem in the area of study. Though the youth are aware of the alcohol related problems, they persistently abuse alcohol intake. Based on these findings it was recommended that the G.O.K, M.O.H NGO's should create awareness on the dangers of alcohol. Since there are very many learning institutions in N.D.C, for example U.O.N, KU, KEMU, JKUAT and tertiary colleges, secondary schools and Primary schools, alcohol awareness should be injected in such learning institutions. Further research should be conducted in the area of study using different research objectives to investigate on other factors influencing alcohol abuse amongst the youth.