Decision-making quality and substance use risk behavior in young adults

Pages: 98-100
Preeti Saini (CMR IMS, Bangalore University, Bangalore)

The purpose of this study is to study the difference in decision making quality of young adults who involve themselves in substance use risk behaviour (drinking & smoking) with young adults who don’t involve themselves in substance use risk behavior. In this study 130 students (ages 18 to 25 yrs.) were administered Decision Making Quality Scale (DMQS) and demographic sheet. They were divided into 2 groups of 65 students each, one group consisting of smokers and drinkers and the other of non-smokers and non-drinkers. Their decision making quality was found out and compared. A t-test was computed for decision making quality between the two groups. The difference was found to be insignificant which shows that the participants’ decision making quality did not affect their substance use risk behavior. It is suggested that in future more hard-core substance use risk behaviors be studied. Another interesting finding of this research was that there seems to be different factors related with risk behaviors in normal population when compared with chronic patients.