*Pattern of Substance Abuse among Children in Slum Areas of India DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105596*

study was quit shocking. It was found that in slum areas 87% children were drug abusers, among which 83% were boys and 17% were girls. A high correlation of substance abuse was found with increasing age consisting of 6.1% drug abuser of age group 5–8 years, 15% drug abuser of age group 9–12 years and 78.9% drug abuser of age group 13–18 years. Most abused substance among them was Tobacco, Alcohol, Inhalants, Sedative and opium. When we inquired about the educational status of parents, it was found that 84.6% of mothers were illiterate and 60.2% of fathers were illiterate. A special emphasis was laid on education of children among which 52% were school going and remaining were engaged in unskilled labor like rag picking, hotel worker, street vending, dhabha and other work. About 77.6% of these children got addicted due to their friends and 17.3% from their family. At the end of our study only 46.3% of them were willing to quit. 50.9% of children were craving for the substances and 38.8% of children got addicted due to peer pressure (**Tables 1**-**5** and **Figures 1** and **2**).


**Table 1.** *Demographic profile of participants.*


*As p < 0.05, there is significant association between age and drug abuse. Children in the age of 13–18 years are more likely to get involved in drug abuse.*

### **Table 2.**

*Association between age and drug abuse.*


*As p < 0.05, there is significant association between mother involved in drug abuse and drug abuse by the children. If the mother is using drugs, there are 90.4% chances of children getting involved in drug abuse.*

### **Table 3.**

*Association between mothers involved in drug abuse and drug abuse by the children.*


*As p < 0.05, there is significant association between father involved in drug abuse and drug abuse by the children. If the father is using drugs, there are 90.8% chances of children getting involved in drug abuse.*

### **Table 4.**

*Association between fathers involved in drug abuse and drug abuse by the children.*

## **3. Discussion**

Substance abuse refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substance including alcohol and illicit drugs. The present study reveals the prevalence of substance abuse among children to be 87%, which is higher than that reported by Lisa Sarangi et al. [2] where the prevalence was 43.4%.Jasani PK et al.in his study covered 600 adolescents and he found that substance abusers children were 30.17% [25]. Another study conducted at Andhra Pradesh by Benegal et al. Prashant et al. [11] revealed that about 32.7% children were abusers. Many research studies have found that, in India 50% children up to grade nine experiences the substance at least once [26, 27].

This research study revealed the major basic reason behind such high consumption of substance abuse is poverty, easy availability of substances and peer pressure. Jasani PK et al. found that most common cause of substance abuse was peer pressure, then

