Realizing the Psychology behind the Dangers of Addiction to Drugs and Psychotropic Substances among Preparatory Students

Abstract

The current research aimed to identify the awareness of the risks of addiction to drugs and psychotropic substances among middle school students, and to clarify the significance of statistical differences in the awareness of the risks of addiction to drugs and psychotropic substances according to the variables of gender (male, female) and academic specialization (scientific - literary). To achieve the objectives of the research, the researcher relied on the use of the (descriptive-relational approach) to reveal the awareness of the dangers of addiction to drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as building a scale of perception of the dangers of addiction to drugs and psychotropic substances among middle school students, based on the theory of Ulrich Beck (1986), and the scale was composed in its final form. After completing the conditions of honesty, constancy, discriminatory power, and internal consistency of (40) items. As a complement to this, the researcher applied the scale to a sample of (400) male and female middle school students in the center of the city of Diwaniyah, which was chosen in a stratified random manner with a proportional method. After collecting the data and processing it statistically using the Statistical Bag for Social Sciences (SSPS).It is worth noting that the findings of the research are that middle school students do not have an awareness of the dangers of addiction to drugs and psychotropic substances. The results also showed that the difference between males and females on the scale is statistically significant and in favor of males. The results also showed that the difference in both the scientific and literary specializations on the scale is statistically significant and in favor of the scientific specialization. The results also showed that the difference between male and female students in both the scientific and literary specializations is not statistically significant, and thus it did not show an interaction of gender and academic specialization in influencing the awareness of the risks of addiction to drugs and psychotropic substances to the middle school students.