Abstract

The study investigated the Influence of Family Background and Students’ Attitude towards Drug Abuse in Tertiary Institutions in Cross River State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey research involving undergraduates selected through multi-stage proportionate technique was utilized for the study. Three research questions were generated to guide the study. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A sample size of 397 respondents was drawn from a population of 51,486, using proportional sampling technique. A self-developed instrument titled Students’ Attitude Towards Drug Abuse Questionnaire (SATDAQ) was used to collect data from the respondents. Data were analyzed using mean score and standard deviation to answer the research questions while One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Independent t-test was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that family size, parental income and parental level of education had significant influence on students’ attitude towards drug abuse in tertiary institutions in Cross River State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that counsellors should create awareness among parents to reduce family size in order to ensure close monitoring of students. Parents are to minimize the pocket money given to their children which could lure them to maladaptive behaviour. The study will be of benefit to the society through journals and other forms of publications.