A recent study has revealed that being unmarried is one of the key catalysts prompting Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) in the country to turn to addictive substances.
According to the study, which involved 1,768 healthcare professionals across the country, being unmarried has often led to medical professionals in the country lacking social support and social isolation, which are risk factors of substance abuse.
"Research has suggested that the change in social role associated with marriage has a causal deterrent effect on psychoactive substance use," the study said.
According to the study, there has been an increasing rate of drug and substance use among healthcare professionals in the country in the past three months, compared to even the general public.
51.7 per cent of the participants in the study confessed to having used addictive substances, including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and opioids, at least once in their lifetime, which is slightly lower than the general Kenyan population aged between 15-65 years, where lifetime use was reported to be 57 per cent.
"In conclusion, this study found a concerningly high lifetime and previous three months use of many substances of abuse when compared to previous studies in Kenyan HCPs, as well as the general population," it stated.
In the past three months, alcohol emerged as the most used drug by healthcare practitioners, with 64.1 per cent reporting consuming it.
"A majority of our participants had tried alcohol in their lifetime, and it was the most frequently used substance in the past three months," it stated.
"Over half of the participants who used alcohol reported a strong desire or urge to use in the past three months, and a quarter reported their use had led to health, social, legal, and financial problems," the study stated.
The second highly used addictive substance during this period was amphetamines, with 64.1 per cent of the HCPs confessing to having used it in the past three months.
Cannabis came third, with 47 per cent of all HCPs who have used it in their lifetime confessing to having used it in the past three months.
Other addictive drugs used by healthcare professionals in the last three months include sedatives and opioids.
According to the study, doctors and allied health staff were more likely to use the substances than nurses, with those who specialized in surgery and internal medicine most affected.
Additionally, healthcare professionals with higher levels of education were more likely to use substances, which is associated with a better job position and higher income, leading to higher affordability and accessibility of substances.
The study, which is titled “Substance use among healthcare professionals: A cross-sectional study in Kenya,” was published in the Pros Global Public Health Journal.
The study attributed this alarming trend to other factors, which include extended duration of medical training, extreme competition, stress, excessive workload, burnout, fear of failure, compassion fatigue, and frequent contact with illness and death.
The participants in the study included doctors (34 per cent), nurses (34.5 per cent), and other allied staff (31.4 per cent).
The researchers have warned that this alarming trend of drug and substance use among medics may affect their performance and may also directly affect patients seeking healthcare services.
