Socio-Economic and Health Effects of Khat Chewing in Mekelle, Tigray Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Khat chewing practice has increased over the years and chronic khat use is associated with adverse health and socio-economic effects. Thus, this study was undertaken among khat chewers in Mekelle town, northern Ethiopia to investigate socio-economic and health-related effects of khat chewing. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Mekelle from April to May 2016 with the help of a structured questionnaire to collect data. Simple random sampling method was used to select the respondents. Descriptive statistics were employed for summarization and presentation of data. Results: Khat chewing was most commonly practiced among male gender (87.1%), productive age group (94.7%), Orthodox Christians (68.0%), unmarried (60.9%), employed (75.7%), educated (53.7%) and high-earned (59.4%) people. Majority of them initiated by peer pressure (34.4%) for academic good performance (24.1%) and continued the practice for entertainment (24.6%) and alertness purpose (24.3%). Just more than half of the respondents (51.6%) chewed khat daily. About three often khat chewers spent at least 500 ETB on khat per week even though more than half of the respondents (55.1%) were unwilling to disclose khat expenditure. Most khat chewers drank alcohol (64.9%) after chewing khat and smoked cigarette (50.8%) and consumed substances such as peanut (60.4%), coffee (75.7%) and soft drinks (59.4%) while practicing khat chewing. Majority of the respondents reported perceived health effects such as sleeping disorder (77.8%), reduced appetite (39.1%), depression (32.7%) and gastrointestinal adverse effect (24.8%). Half of khat chewers believed that they would plan to stop the practice in the future. Conclusions: The community, especially youth, need to be aware of negative health and socio-economic consequences of khat chewing through designing educational strategies to bring behavioral change.