Mental health and substance abuse interplay amongst socially pressured youths in Gwanda urban

Author

Banda, Natasha.

Title

Mental health and substance abuse interplay amongst socially pressured youths in Gwanda urban

Abstract

The study analysed the link between metal health and substance abuse amongst socially pressured youths in Gwanda urban. The main objectives were to explore the current mental health issues and seeking behaviours of youths, to investigate the social pressures experienced by youths in Gwanda and how it influence their mental health and substance abuse behaviours and to provide recommendations of targeted prevention and intervention strategies that address mental health, substance abuse and social pressures in Gwanda urban. . The social learning theory and the ecological systems theory was adopted to shed more light on the mental health issues and drug and substance abuse that is faced by socially pressured youths, the aim was to identify and respond to the underlying causes of each of these and how they interlink with each other. Survey and interviews were used as a research design for this study. Data was collected using key informant interviews as well as a survey questionnaire for other participants. The target population comprised of young people from different community setups in Gwanda district and key informants were selected from people who are at Friendship bench who deal with such issues. The survey was done to complement the information provided by keys informants. The research findings showed that the causes of drug and substance abuse is these social pressure such as peer pressure, family pressure, school and academic pressure and pressure from the society and that indeed drug and substance abuse interlinks and informs mental health and vice versa among socially pressured youth. It was also noted that awareness raised has been of great impact as there was increased treatment of these mental health cases and a decrease in substance abuse.

Date

June 2024

Publisher

BUSE

Keywords

Link between metal health and substance abuse,

Family pressure,

Gwanda district,

Supervisor

Mrs. E. Chigondo,