Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorder among Students in Mount Kenya University, Nairobi

Abstract

Studies have shown that alcohol use is a vice that has serious effects on the users. However use of the substance has been found to be highly prevalent among various populations including University students. In order to ascertain this assertion, this study examined the prevalence of alcohol use among the students of Mount Kenya University, Kenya. Data was collected from a population of 258 participants from Mount Kenya University who were between 18-26 years of age. The sample of the study comprised of 126 undergraduate students from the said university. This sample was selected using stratified purposeful sampling method. The instrument that was used for screening alcohol use among the students was the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT). Participants who scored 7 or less in AUDIT were considered to have low risk to AUD, hence they were casual and social drinkers whereas, those who scored 8 and above were diagnosed to exhibit alcohol use disorder. The distribution of participants’ gender scores showed that male participants who had AUD were higher at 10.9% as opposed female participants who had AUD at 5.5%. The frequency of participants who scored 7 or less were higher (215, 83.7%) compared to those who scored 8 or above on AUDIT (42, 16.3%). Therefore, the prevalence of alcohol use disorder among the students of Mount Kenya University was 16.3%. Recommendations were made for stakeholders to arrange for strategic therapeutic activities for different groups of students and especially those that are almost graduating from University.