Moslem Lari Najafi, Maryam Nasiri

Abstract

Background and objectives: The high prevalence of addiction imposes a lot of physical, mental, and psychological problems on society.  Beside these problems, transmission of HIV can be named, which is caused by injecting drugs. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was randomly conducted based on the information obtained from 710 addicts using a demographic information form. Results: According to the results, the mean age of the addicts was 33 years, and 95.5% of them were male. Moreover, the mean age of the onset of drug abuse was obtained as ≥ 22 years. In total, 71.8% of the addicts were in the age range of 20-39 years, and a minimum number of this population was under 20 years. Regarding marital status, 69.6% of the addicts were married, and in terms of occupational status, 35.9% and 31.1% of them were worker and unemployed, respectively. In addition, 95.6% of the subjects did not have a high school diploma. The most prevalent type of used drug was opium (45.1%), followed by a crack (18.3%). Furthermore, the results revealed significantly higher levels of opium (P=0.05), refined opium (P=0.03), and crack consumption (P=0.04) among males than in females. The data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 18). Conclusion: As the findings indicated, opium and crack were the most commonly used drugs among the addicts. The higher prevalence of addiction was among the young, unemployed, and insufficiently educated individuals, which necessitates the development of plans for the prevention of drug consumption in this population.