A comparison of chamba (marijuana) abusers and general psychiatric admissions in Malawi

Stuart Carr, Alastair Ager, Clifford Nyando, Kamwadi Moyo, Annette Titeca and Maureen Wilkinson

Social Science & Medicine, 1994, vol. 39, issue 3, 401-406

Abstract: The study aimed to provide the first general description of chamba-related admissions to Zomba Mental Hospital, the major psychiatric facility in Malawi, and to analyse the distinctiveness of this patient group from other admissions. A questionnaire was verbally administered to 50 chamba abusers and 50 other patients matched by gender, age, and admission date. The typical chamba abusing patient is: 27, male, a subsistence farmer, takes the drug because it is the cheapest form of intoxication, reports 'seeing things clearly' (immediate effect), and general apathy (long-term); and compared to other patients is more likely to originate from a chamba-growing area, less likely to have been raised by his natural parents, and has had more schooling.

Keywords: marijuana; Malawi; psychiatric; patients; drug; abuse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(94)90137-6
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:39:y:1994:i:3:p:401-406

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().