Personality Traits among Inmates of Aba Prison in Nigeria: Influence of the Five Factor Model on Inmate Status and type of Offences

Background: Personality traits are the basic elements in the study of personality and it influences decision making by affecting our choices about whether to engage in different behaviours. Knowledge of the different personality traits among prison inmate is useful as it will assists in the development of interventions and strategies that target people with specific trait profiles so as to maximize their effectiveness in changing behaviour.Aim: To assess the personality traits of inmates in Aba prisonMethods: Four hundred and six inmates were studied. Each inmate completed a semi-structured sociodemographic questionnaire and personality traits were assessed with the 44-item Big Five Inventory.Results: The majority (72.7%) of the inmates were within the age range of 21 - 40 years . The personality trait with the highest mean score was openness while neuroticism had the lowest mean score. A large proportion of the inmates were awaiting trial (94.6%) while only few were convicted inmates (5.4%). The most common type of offence among the inmate was armed robbery (34.0%), followed by stealing, murder and assault (29.6%, 17.0% and 15.0 respectively) while rape and kidnapping were the least common offence (0.5% and 0.2% respectively). The convicted inmates reported significant higher mean scores on extraversion and agreeableness than the awaiting trial inmates. There were significant differences in all Big Five personality domain scores in the different inmate's charges using ANOVA except in neuroticism.Conclusion: The findings of high extraversion and agreeableness traits among Nigerian convicted inmates and significant differences in personality trait of the different inmate charges open up new opportunities for further researc

Psychoactive Substance Use Among Psychiatric Outpatients In a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Background: Psychiatric and substance-use disorders are serious problems for the individuals who have them as well as the society as a whole. There is dearth of studies enumerating the estimates of psychoactive drug use among psychiatric outpatients in Nigeria.Aim: This study aimed at determining lifetime and current use prevalence of psychoactive substance among psychiatric outpatients.Methods: Subjects from the psychiatric clinic of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex were consecutively recruited for the study. Information on sociodemographic variables and drug use was obtained and data was subject to descriptive and inferential statistics.Results: Data from 130 subjects were analysed. The mean age was 39.95 years and 53.8% of subjects were males. Life time and current use prevalence of any substance were 45.4% and 22.3% respectively. Concerning specific psychoactive substance, Stimulant (26.9%) was highest in lifetime use while alcohol (13.1%) was highest in current use among respondents. Patients with Schizophrenia had the highest lifetime rate of any substance (15.4%) while patients with seizure, dementia and other disorders had the lowest rate (2.3%).Conclusion: Stimulants and alcohol were the substances more likely to be used by the mentally ill irrespective of their diagnostic category. These observations underscore the need to further study the important relationship between these psychoactive substances and these psychiatric disorders.Keywords: Psychoactive substance , psychiatry , outpatient