CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 23Substance Abuse Treatment and OutcomesHealthcare professionals’ stress and burnoutSmoking Behavior and Cessation

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 62 of the 62 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of substance use among medical students in India

Open access
Sahu, Anamika, Bhati, Nikita, Sarkar, Siddharth·2022·Indian Journal of Psychiatry
DOI 10.4103/indianjpsychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_672_21PMC PMC9290412
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Background and Aims: Substance use among medical students may have consequences like poor academic performance and impaired patient care. There is a growing literature on substance use among medical students in India. This systematic review and meta-analysis were done to synthesize the literature on substance use among medical students in India. Methods: Medline and Google Scholar were used as search engines to ascertain the literature that reported substance use among Indian medical students from January 2000 to January 2022. The pooled prevalence of tobacco, alcohol, other substance, and overall substance use was computed. Results: A total of 65 studies were included. The pooled prevalence of tobacco use was 21.9% (95% confidence intervals [CI] 18.5% to 25.3%, n = 20,165, k = 51), while the pooled prevalence of alcohol use was 27.1% (95% CI of 23.0% to 31.1%, n = 11,823, k = 31). The overall pooled prevalence of substance use was 40.3% (95% CI of 25.5% to 55.2%, n = 4960, k = 10), while pooled prevalence of cannabis was 8.2% (95% CI of 4.9% to 11.5%, n = 2418, k = 7). The use of tobacco was about 10 times higher in males than females, while the odds of alcohol use were about five times higher in males. Conclusion: Substance use is common among medical students, with rates of substance use being generally higher in males as compared to females. Targeted interventions may help to reduce substance use and prevent the development of substance use disorders in this population.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.4103/indianjpsychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_672_21

Cites

62 of 62 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Figures

Figure 1 Identification of studies
Figure 1 Identification of studiesCC BY-NC-SA · PubMed Central
Figure 2 Rates of tobacco use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportion
Figure 2 Rates of tobacco use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportionCC BY-NC-SA · PubMed Central
Figure 3 Rates of alcohol use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportion
Figure 3 Rates of alcohol use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportionCC BY-NC-SA · PubMed Central
Figure 4 Rates of other substance use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportion
Figure 4 Rates of other substance use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportionCC BY-NC-SA · PubMed Central
Figure 5 Rates of overall substance use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportion
Figure 5 Rates of overall substance use among medical students. Estimates represent the prevalence figures as proportion with 95% CIs. The squares represent the individual studies while the diamond represents the pooled prevalence (center of the diamond) with CIs (ends of the diamond). The X axis represents the prevalence measured as proportionCC BY-NC-SA · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 62 references

Research works printed but not linked: 15

  1. Jagnany, 2008, Pattern of substance abuse among the undergraduate students in a medical college hostel, Health Popul-Perspect Issues, 31, 212
  2. Gupta, 2012, Prevalence of use of tobacco among male medical students in IGMC Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India, J Int Med Sci Acad, 25, 241
  3. Hameedkunju, 2018, Prevalence of smoking among male medical students in a tertiary medical care centrein Kerala, Amrita J Med, 14, 30
  4. Aggarwal, 2012, Habits and beliefs pertaining to tobacco among undergraduates of a medical college in the state of Uttarakhand, J Indian Acad Clin Med, 13, 189
  5. Bandopadhyay, 2013, Study of prevalence of smoking and knowledge, attitude and practice among medical student of Burdwan Medical College, West Bengal, India, Int Med Appl Sci, 2, 52
  6. Bartwal, 2014, Awareness and pattern of tobacco use among the medical students of government medical college, Indian J Community Health, 26, 155
  7. Das, 2015, Tobacco use among undergraduate students in a medical college of Assam, India, Int J Health Sci Res, 5, 1
  8. Datta, 2015, A study of substance abuse among medical students of a medical college in Kolkata, Indian J Hyg Public Health Kolkata, 1, 48
  9. Haldar, 2018, Substance abuse among the undergraduate students of a medical college of Kolkata, Int J Res Rev, 5, 182
  10. Jambaiah, 2015, Study of knowledge, attitude and practice of tobacco consumption among 1st year medical students of S. Nijalingappa medical college in Bagalkot city, Innovatica, 4, 1
  11. Kumar, 2016, Pattern of substance abuse among undergraduate medical students in Central India:A cross sectional institutional study, Int J Health Sci Res, 6, 43
  12. Padhy, 2014, Prevalence and causes of substance abuse among undergraduate medical college students, Ind Med Gaz, 148, 276
  13. Singh, 2014, Knowledge, attitude and practice related to tobacco use and its cessation among young medical professionals, Indian J Soc Psychiatry, 30, 35
  14. Singh, 2016, Prevalence of tobacco smoking and KAP about smoking among students of a private medical college in Central Kerala, Int J Public Health Res, 3, 195
  15. Sathish, 2013, Alcohol consumption among undergraduate MBBS students in Rims, Imphal, Int J Sci Res, 4, 59

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Sahu, A., Bhati, N., & Sarkar, S.
Affiliations
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (IN)
Corresponding author
Sarkar, Siddharth
ORCID
Venue
Indian Journal of Psychiatry
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Published
2022-05
Volume
64
Issue
3
Pages
225-239
ISSN
  • 0019-5545 (ISSN-L)
  • 1998-3794
DOI
10.4103/indianjpsychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_672_21
PMC
PMC9290412
OpenAlex
W4285242866
Cited by
23
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1
FWCI
0.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc-sa
Locations
  • Indian Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
Keywords
substance use, medical students, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, cannabis use, prevalence, sex differences, India, substance use disorders

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review