Comparison of Mental Health, Aggression and Hopefulness between Student Drug-Users and Healthy Students (A Study in Iran)

BACKGROUND: Addiction is a social problem and a destructive phenomenon; like other social diversions, addiction destroys the country’s most valuable assets, which are obviously the youth and the adolescents. In this regard, this study has been performed with the aim of comparing the mental health, aggression, and hopefulness of student drug-users and healthy students. METHODS: The study has been performed by descriptive-analytical method among students of Kerman’s universities in Iran. The study sample contained 520 people who were selected using a stratified random sampling method. Three questionnaires including General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) and Miller Hopefulness questionnaire have been used for data gathering. In this study, the student drug-users are those who use a substance (cigarettes, hookah, alcohol, opium, etc.) at least once a week. FINDINGS: Findings showed that out of the 520 people under-study, 34.62% (180 people) are drug users, by whom the percentages of different substances used are as following: Hookah: 38.33%; Cigarettes: 28.35%; Alcohol: 20.55%; Opium: 5.55%; Cannabis: 2.23%; Heroin: 1.12%; Crack: 0.55%; Glass: 1.66 % and Psychotropic Pills and Ecstasy: 1.66%. A significant difference was observed in comparing the mental health, aggression, and hopefulness of student drug-users and healthy students (P < 0.05), so that the student drug-users had lower mental health and hopefulness and showed more aggression than the healthy group. CONCLUSION: Substance abuse endangers the mental health of people and drug-users show more aggression and are less hopeful.