Background:
Substance abuse among adolescents is a major public health and social problem. However,studies rarely investigate the relationships between substance abuse, educational achievementand sport factors. Substance abuse is an even more significant problem in societies that haveexperienced trauma, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have had recent wars. The aimsof this study were to investigate substance abuse among adolescents in Bosnia andHerzegovina and to study the potential gender-specific relationships between a) sport factors(physical activity/exercise/athletic participation) and substance abuse and b) scholasticachievement and substance abuse.
Methods:
Our sample consisted of 1,032 adolescents who were 17 to 18 years old (435 boys and 597girls) and who were in the final grade of high school. These subjects were randomly selectedfrom the territory of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Retrospectivetesting was performed using an extensive self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaireincluded questions involving topics such as sociodemographic variables, scholastic variables,sport factors, and substance abuse data (smoking habits, drugs consumption and alcoholconsumption using the AUDIT questionnaire). Descriptive statistics, frequencies, analyses ofthe differences and correlational analyses were performed.
Results:
Our results found that greater than one-third of the boys and one-fourth of the girls were dailysmokers, and almost half of the boys and one-fifth of the girls practiced harmful drinking;other drugs (i.e. heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, etc.) were rarely consumed. Boys dominatedin sport factors, whereas girls were more successful in scholastic achievement.Approximately 23% of the boys and 6% of the girls reported that they practiced harmfuldrinking and smoked simultaneously. Educational failure, which was defined as having oneor more negative grades at the end of the last two school years, was identified in 20% of theboys and 9% of the girls. In both genders, substance abuse was negatively correlated witheducational achievement, and half of those students who failed educationally reported dailysmoking. Among the girls who experienced education failure, 33% were smokers, and 22%practiced harmful drinking. Sport factors were weakly correlated with substance abuse inboys; thus, we could not support the hypothesis that sports are a protective factor againstsubstance abuse among male adolescents. In girls, participation in team sports was relatedwith a higher incidence of smoking, but there was no evidence of sport factors having aninfluence on the consumption of alcohol.
Conclusion:
In this study, the incidence of smoking and the consumption of alcohol were alarmingly high.These findings demonstrate the need for intervention programs to address these issues. Theseproblems are particularly important, considering that substance abuse has a negative impacton educational achievement among boys and girls, and sport factors have not been found tobe protective factors against substance abuse.