Background:

Tobacco smoking and energy drinks consumption have seen an upswing during the last years in the West Bank, Palestine. Moreover, waterpipe smoking is an emerging health risk among Palestinians, especially females. While the rate of tobacco uses and ED consumption continues to be a growing problem among Palestinians in general and university students in specific, research has not thoroughly investigated their complications among Palestinians especially during COVID-19 quarantine.

Methods: Self-administrated questionnaire and Beck Depression Inventory were used to assess the association of depression and cognitive enhancers and psychostimulants use among university students at An-Najah National University in 2020 during the COVID-19 quarantine.

Results: The results indicated that the overall prevalence of depression, tobacco smoking, coffee, and energy drinks consumptions were high among university students, with apparent differences in accordance to the gender and academic fields. Depression was less prevalent among medical students than health sciences students and non-medical students. The severity of depression was strongly associated with cigarette smoking.

Conclusion: The results of this suggest the urgent need to address depression and risk factors associated with it among Palestinian university students by educating students about mental health, identifying high-risk students, and offering easily accessible psychological help. They prompt the need to broaden the spectrum of studies to include and compare students from various academic fields instead of only focusing on medical students.

Keywords: Addiction, depression; caffeine intoxication; energy drinks consumption; cognitive enhancers; psychostimulants

Conference Title

2021 NIDA INTERNATIONAL FORUM Building International Collaborative Research on Drug Abuse

Conference Country

Palestine

Conference Date

June 21, 2021 - June 24, 2021

Conference Sponsor

National Institute of Health (NIH), National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD)