Abstract:
The abuse of cannabis among undergraduates comes with adverse health and psychosocial consequences on the adolescents and the society at large. Previous studies have focused largely on its predisposing factors and the general treatment of its associated depression and disorder symptoms with little emphasis on how to encourage abstinence among undergraduates. This study, therefore, was designed to determine the effect of Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) as well as the moderating effects of gender and age at on-set on cannabis use among undergraduates in private universities in southwestern Nigeria.
The study was anchored to the Domain Model and Social Cognitive Theory, while the mixed method of survey and pretest-posttest, control group quasi experimental design of 2x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. Two private universities (Babcock and Adeleke) in the Southwest, Nigeria that conduct drug screening for students were purposively selected and randomly assigned to MET (Babcock- 25) and control (Adeleke-15).Treatment lasted for eight weeks. Clinical drug screening kit, Adolescent Cannabis Problem Questionnaire (CPQ-A) (r=0.73), MET guides and non-participant observation (for four weeks) were used for data collection. Data were analysed using, descriptive statistics, Analysis of covariance andcontent analysisat 0.05 level of significance.
Participants were mostly male (75.0%) with mean age of 20± 2.8 years. Participants’ mean age at on-set for cannabis use was 17±2.7 years. Treatment had a significant main effect on cannabis use among undergraduates (F(1; 39)=23.45, partial η2=0.45). Participants in MET had a higher post-treatment mean score (63.123) than those in control group (58.41). Gender had a significant main effect on cannabis use (F(1; 38)=10.790, partial η2=0.27), while age at on-set had none. Male participants had a higher post-treatment mean score (62.73) than female (59.74). The two-way and three-way interaction effects were not significant. Some of the participants made informed decisions of quitting cannabis use completely and others hinged their temporal abstinence on the fear of the consequences of being reprimanded.
Motivational enhancement therapy was effective in bolstering internally motivated cannabis abstinence among undergraduates in selected private universities in southwestern, Nigeria. The intervention should, therefore, be incorporated as part of the universities’ drug rehabilitation policy to encourage drug abstinence among students who are challenged with drug use, particularly the female students regardless of their age at commencement of cannabis usage.
