A STUDY OF BIRJAND UNIVERSITY STUDENT'S' KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS TAKING ECSTASY PILLS

Background and Aim: Drug addiction is ruinous, but more ruinous is addiction to Ecstasy drugs and materials .Undoubtedly, some juveniles and youths, due to lacking sufficient knowledge; take these pills to put an end to their griefs. Regarding the increasing use of this material in the country the present study was carried out to measure the extent of Birjand University students' knowledge about and attitude towards Ecstasy (EX) pills in Birjand. It was thus considered their rate of knowledge and attitude to plan for necessary training in this respect. The harmful effects of these materials should be introduced to the students and to other vulnerable groups of the community. Materials and Methods: In this descriptiveanalytical study 536 students from Universities of Medical sciences, Azad, and Birjand were investigated. Data collecting tool was a structured questionnaire containing 30 questions. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire were measured by content validity and test re-test, respectively .To analyze the data, chi-square, student t-test, and one -way variance were used and P≤0.05 was considered as the significant level. Results: It was revealed that 63.4% of the students had weak, 29.7% moderate, and only 6.9% had high knowledge about Ecstasy pills, 13.6% of them had seen the pills, but only 4.3% had used them. There was no significant relationship between mean knowledge score and variables such as gender, place of residence, and University. Also, there was no significant relationship between using EX pills, University, and order of birth. But there was a significant correlations between using EX pills and place of residence, gender, and students’ rate of knowledge (P<0.05). Conclusion: Lack of information and knowledge is a leading factor in attracting vulnerable groups of the community to Ecstasy pills .Besides, living in places, such as rented houses, not controlled by authorities can be a factor in attracting students to narcotics and ecstasy.