Substance use disorder in medical graduates in tertiary medical college

Introduction: Medical training has always been regarded as highly rigourous stressful and arduous. Although, only the academically-minded youth in the society tend to be selected for medical education, the stressful and extended academic environment can exert a negative effect on the mental psyche and physical well-being of medical students. Methods: Cross-sectional institutional study conducted among undergraduate medical college students of Navodaya medical college and research centre, Raichur, India. Information collected with the semi structured oral questionnaire after obtaining informed verbal consent. Demographic details like (sex, residence, academic year, type of family, influence and role of family members) with details of substance abuse (type, age of initiation, frequency) and attitude towards substance abuse.  Data was analyzed using Spss software 25 version. Results: Out of total 578 students only 513 students (88.75%) responded.  Out of total 578 students only 88 medical students were substances users. Male constituted 94.0%, whereas females were 6.0%. 28.3% substance abusers in interns. 88% were hostellers, 38.9% come from joint families, 29.9% having history of substance abuse in their siblings. Most common substances used were cigarettes (80.6%).  31.3% initiated substance used in school. 34.3% were Habitual user. In 58.2% perceived reason for substance use were celebrate some occasion.74.6% did not feel any unwanted effects. 39 had made some attempts to quitting the substances, 61.5% knew ill effects on health. 41.1% had quitted by gradually decrease.  31 were failure to quit.  64.5% attributed their failures to lack of will power. Conclusions: Continuing use of these substances in spite of knowledge of hazards associated with them reflected lack of health consciousness and need of proper health education. Key words: Medical students, Substance abuse, Pattern, India.