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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1452018
Academic performance and its associated factors among khat chewer and non-chewer high school students at Ethiopia, 2023
Provisionally accepted
Tilahun Tesfa 1*
Tilahun B Mossie 2
Meseret Tadesse 2
Yonas Deressa Guracho 2
Birhanu Mengist Munie 3- 1 Amhara Regional Health Bureau, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
- 2 College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
- 3 Department of Psychiatry, College of Health Sciences, Debre Tabor University, Debre Tabor, Amhara, Ethiopia
Background: Academic performance is the measure of a student's achievement of their educational goals, typically assessed through school exams and ongoing evaluations. Regular khat consumption can have detrimental effects on neurocogntive functions, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities, leading to decreased academic achievements. This effect is particularly noticeable in Ethiopia.Objective: This study was aimed to assess academic performance and associated factors among khat chewers and non-chewer high school students at Motta town north-west Ethiopia in 2023.A comparative cross-sectional study was carried out between from April 26, 2023-June 10, 2023 in Motta town among 663 high school students of which 221 khat chewers and 442 from non-chewers. Multi-stage sampling method was used to select the study participants.Structured self-administered questioner was used to assess the academic performance of the students. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was performed at P < 0.05 with a 95% confidence interval to identify statistical significant variables.The study participants, 45 (20.7%) Khat chewers and 41 (9.4%) non-chewers had scored failed/poor academic performance. Students who scored less than 50% by one subject were 83 (38.2%) of khat chewers and 107 (24.6%) of non-chewers. The mean of academic performance were 59.82 and 66.45 from khat chewers, non-chewers respectively. The finding showed that the chance of having an excellent academic performance at female students were 35% lower [AOR=0.
Keywords: academic, academic performance, Khat chewing, student, Ethiopia
Received: 20 Jun 2024; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tesfa, Mossie, Tadesse, Guracho and Munie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Tilahun Tesfa, Amhara Regional Health Bureau, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
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