Drug use by Greek university students and preventive actions

The present paper has tried to contribute to the Greek limited research concerning drug use by university students and also to discuss issues related to effective preventive actions. Results were based on a big sample (1778 students) of a medium-sized Greek university. An instrument made for the purposes of the study was distributed to the sample focusing on frequency of drug use, knowledge of the hazardous effects of drug use, assessment of easy access to drugs, reasons for abstinence from drugs. The results showed that a small part of the students were occasional and/or systematic drug users, most of the students assessed as very much easy the access to illegal drugs, a great part of the students seemed to ignore the hazardous effects of them, and the main reasons for abstinence from drugs were dislike and fears of bad experiences. Counseling services should offer preventive actions concerning information, group counseling, and peer-counseling. (c) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.