A community based study of patterns of psychoactive substance use among street children in a local government area of Nigeria.

Background: The nature of continuous exposure to the street and its associated lifestyles make street children vulnerable to the use of psychoactive substances. At present, there is insufficient information regarding the pattern of psychoactive substance use among this group of children in Nigeria.

Aims: To determine the pattern of psychoactive substance use among street children and to explore those socio-demographic and street factors that could be related to current psychoactive substance use.

Integrating mental health into primary health care in Nigeria: management of depression in a local government (district) area as a paradigm.

Background: In Nigeria, the primary health care (PHC) manned by non-physician health workers, forms the bedrock of the health care system. And mental health care has not yet been integrated into primary health care system.

Objective: To demonstrate how the training of primary health care workers in the recognition and management of depression can form an example of systematic integration of mental health into primary health care.

Socio-demographic and forensic characteristics of alcohol abusers in Jos, Nigeria.

The socio-demographic and forensic characteristics of fifty(50) alcohol abusers were examined in a community survey carried out in Kugiya (a predominantly Christian Berom ethnic group in Jos) who brew and take predominantly a local alcohol, Burukutu. A stratified sampling method was used to select 142 subjects who took part in the study, out of whom 50 (54%) males and 23 (46%) females of ages 16-54 years were identified as Alcohol Abusers through the use of a 4-item CAGE instrument and also the quantity taken. The questionnaire also highlighted the socio-forensic characteristics of the studied group.

The pattern of isolated sleep paralysis among Nigerian nursing students.

In a cross-sectional study of the pattern of isolated sleep paralysis among the entire population of nursing students at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Abeokuta, Nigeria (consisting of 58 males and 37 females), 44% admitted having experienced this phenomenon. The findings largely supported the results of a similar study of Nigerian medical students, except that there was a slight male preponderance among those who had the experience. Visual hallucination was the most common perceptual problem associated with the episodes, and all the affected subjects were most distressed by the experience.

The pattern of isolated sleep paralysis among Nigerian medical students.

In a cross-sectional study of the patterns of isolated sleep paralysis among 164 Nigerian medical students, 26.1% admitted having experienced this phenomenon. About 31% of the females and 20% of the males had had this experience.