Higher education students in Portugal/2022: psychoactive substances and gaming/gambling

Background

The ES+Saúde research project main goal is to produce significant and comprehensive results on students from all public higher education in Portugal, that could contribute to the development of strategic intervention plans at different levels of action on the health and lifestyles of this population. The importance of the student context for the development of lifestyles that enhance risk behaviors, as well as the need to obtain a diagnosis of these health-related behaviors and lifestyles, were the starting points for this study.

Methods

Data collection relied on a support network made up of representatives from the Universities and Higher Polytechnic Institutes, and non-integrated Higher Education Schools, as well as the dissemination about the ongoing study and collaboration in mobilizing teachers and students to complete the questionnaire. It was applied an online questionnaire to a stratified probabilistic sample and clusters, representative of the universe of 283 542 students from the 1st and 2nd Cycle of the set of 30 higher education institutions public in Portugal for the 2021/2022 academic year. The sample consists of 9 611 questionnaires valid for all Universities, Polytechnic Institutes, and non-integrated Higher Education Schools (with a sampling error between 3.6% and 6.2%, for a range of 95% confidence).

Results

Alcohol is the main psychoactive substance consumed, followed by tobacco and illicit drugs. It should be added that recent and current consumption of cannabis represent three times the values associated with recent and current consumption of drugs other than cannabis. Regarding gambling, approximately a third of these students played for money in the last year, but 6 out of 10 played online gaming in the last month. As our sample is made up mainly of young students attending the first years of higher education (30% are 18 or 19 years old, and approximately 60% are students in the 1st and 2nd years of the 1st Cycle) we should not ignore that some of the consumption patterns and gambling practices are similar to those found in pre-university students. In relation to the prevalence of use in the last 12 months, it was found that female respondents are the ones who use the most legal substances in isolation, such as alcohol and tobacco.

Conclusions

Regarding the 18 years old or older, one must consider, that they have some financial autonomy, and they are no longer denied access to either to legal substances (tobacco and alcohol), as well as gambling. Therefore, it is not a question of placing the issue in the field of legislation and/or supervision in relation to the sale of legal substances or gambling, but rather placing the emphasis on preventive work to be done early, especially because it is a work of changing mentalities, which presupposes a lengthy and complex process, unlike the transition from being a minor to coming of age from the point of view of the penal framework.