OBJECTIVE: To describe the profile of the psychoactive substances used among the college students from the Medicine course in the Center of Health Sciences in, Espirito Santo Federal University. METHODS: It is a exploratory, descriptive, transversal and quantitative study developed within 168 college students of Medicine from the first to the last year of the course. The instrument used to collect data was the Questionnaire on Drug Abuse, an adaptation from the questionnaire proposed by WHO¹. The data had been tabulated through the Social Science Program Statistical Package (SPSS)². RESULTS: Overall, 54.8% of the college students are females, 76.8%, from 17 to 22 years and 50% belonging to social class "B". As for the use of psychoactive substances, a high prevalence of alcohol was founded (86.9%), followed by tobacco (22.0%), solvents (15.5%), amphetamines (10.1%), cannabis (9.5%), hallucinogens (1.8%) and barbiturates (0.6%). CONCLUSION: It is necessary to prevent the psychoative substance abuse among college students, introducing curricular disciplines on the theme or specific programs to attend these students.
Psychoactive substances; colleges; prevention
