Study on Prevalence and It's Contributing Factors of Psychoactive Substance Abuse among Homeless Children

Homeless children are those who live alone on the street. UNICEF estimated that India has 18 million homeless children which is the largest population in the world. Use of psychoactive substance is particularly high in street children as seen in 40-70% of street children across various Indian cities are substance abusers. The study was conducted at District Ludhiana, Punjab. 60 Homeless children of age group 6-18 years were selected by snowball sampling. WHO Assist V 3.0 and a structured questionnaire were used to collect data. Findings reveals that 55 (91.7%) of the homeless children were psychoactive substance abusers with 14.95 ± 02.50 years as mean age of initiation of the substance abuse. Major factors to initiate substance abuse were enjoyment and peer pressure. Age (p=0.02), Male gender (p=0.43), Illiteracy (p=43) were associated with substance abuse among homeless children.