PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES AND ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

The research was conducted with the objective of determining how the consumption of psychoactive substances affects the academic development of university students, identifying factors such as the substances of greatest consumption and the reasons why they consume them during their professional training process; an exploratory cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach was conducted, which allowed to know the causes of the problem, the population consisted of 2,278 students of the careers of: Communication, Economics, Social Work and Law and the survey technique was applied to 339 students, with a questionnaire of closed questions. Among the methods used in this study were: inductive, deductive, documentary and analytical methods. The results obtained show that university students consume legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco with 78% while 6% consume legal drugs; and they do it repeatedly in and 52%; and 92% stated that it affects their academic performance, however they do it; As conclusions the following are raised: Students consume legal psychoactive substances such as alcohol and tobacco; in a lower percentage illegal substances such as marijuana; among the causes that lead them to consumption are: to be accepted in a group, family problems, social pressure, academic stress and that the consumption of psychoactive substances affects academic performance causing loss of subjects, school dropout and low grades.