Academic Anxiety and Mindfulness as Predictors of Substance Use Among Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The study investigated academic anxiety and mindfulness as predictors of substance use among undergraduate students, with one hundred and ninety-four (194) undergraduate students which comprises of 107 females and 87 males with mean age of 20.76 and S.D of 2.62 were drawn using multi-stage (cluster, simple random: by balloting and purposive) sampling techniques as participants from Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu. The Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10), Academic Anxiety Scale, and Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills were used for data collection. A correlational design was adopted and multiple hierarchical Regressions with the aid of SPSS version 23 were applied as a statistical to analyse the data to test the hypothesis. Findings revealed that Mindfulness is a negatively predicted substance use among undergraduate students (β = -.17, p< .05). Academic anxiety was not a significant predictor of substance use among undergraduate students (β = .08, p< .05). Therefore, therapist should help students that seek help against substance use on how to be social minded so as to cushion the effect of substance use.