OBJECTIVETo investigate the status on the initial use of illicit drugs among the college students in Wuhan city,and to explore its related risk factors for developing strategies to reduce the rate.

METHODSCollege students were enrolled from universities by stratified randomization, and were asked to answer the self-report questionnaires anonymously. The related risk factors with initial illicit drugs were analyzed by univariate analyses and logistic regression analysis.

RESULTSThe rate of initial illicit drugs use reached 2.0 % among 5677 studied college students in Wuhan city including 2.8 % male students ever once used illicitly with the rate as 5.5 % among senior college students. The overall rate of initial illicit drugs use among students who were under the conditions of insomniac, depression, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol,lack of parents' care and bad relationship with classmates were seen as 3.3 %, 3.8%, 18.0 %, 16.3%, 12.0%,16.0% respectively. The rate of initial illicit drugs use among those who were with very high or low family income were 4.0% and 3.1% respectively.

CONCLUSIONThere was high rate of initial illicit drug use among college students in Wuhan city and the major risk factors of the initial illicit drugs use would include smoke, drink, depression, bad relationship with classmates and being in higher grade. The problem of the initial illicit drugs was very serious among the college students in Wuhan city which called for special attention.