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Background: Quality of care is one of the major public health concerns in this 21st century. We tried to assess the clients' perspectives of quality of care provided by the primary health centres of Tafa Local Government Area in Niger state North central Nigeria., Methodology: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among the 273 clients utilizing services in the 3 primary health centres of Tafa Local Government Area of Niger state in the North central geo-political zone of Nigeria., Results: Result from the research shows that more than one-third (39%) of the clients attending the primary health centres were children within the age group of 0-9 months. Outpatient services for common health care problems such malaria and diarrhoea account for more than onethird (35.7%) of the total clients load. On their experiences during receiving care all the clients (100%) were seen by the health worker, more than half of the clients (57%) obtained all drugs prescribed, three-quarter (76%) were satisfied with questions asked during consultation and less than half (44%) were examined. Furthermore, more than four-fifth (83%) were informed on how to take drugs and 62% were informed of when to come back. More than one-third of the respondents (36.7%) waited for about 1-3 hrs.. When their overall satisfaction was placed on the Likert's 5-point scale, 3% highly satisfied, 8% were satisfied, 39% fairly satisfied, 29% dissatisfied and 9% were highly dissatisfied., Conclusion: In conclusion, despite the level of advancement attained in health care in the 21st century which is regarded as the era of Total Quality Management, Quality of care in primary health care centres leaves much to be desired. This therefore calls for an urgent, deliberate, sustained and purposeful effort to institutionalize Quality Assurance mechanism as an integral part of our health system.

Background: Psycho-active substances have been used by various societies since the dawn of civilization, and still remain a major public health concern in the 21st century. Evidence has shown that in the last 2 decades in Nigeria, adolescents are a major group involved in the use of psychoactive substances. The study was carried out to determine pattern of use and the push factors for such use among in school adolescents in Zaria, Nigeria., Method: The study was cross sectional descriptive in design. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to interview 280 respondents using self administered, structured and pre tested questionnaires. Data was analyzed manually and chi-square test statistic was used to test for significance of association between categorical variables at p value of < 0.05., Results: A total of 280 respondents, 195 (69.6%) males and 85 (30.4%) females senior secondary school adolescent were interviewed. The study shows that 157 (56%) use one or more substance or the other. The commonest ones are kola nut followed by cigarette and marijuana. The commonest push factor for use is to experiment (54%). The study also shows, statistically significant relationship between family background and psychoactive substance use (chi2 = 21.57, df = 2 p < 0.05), there was however no statistical significance between age, class of the students and substance use respectively (chi2 = 1.94, df = 2 p > 0.05) (chi2 = 0.97, df = 2p > 0.05)., Conclusion: The prevalence of psychoactive substances use is unacceptably high and the main trigger identified was the process of experimentation in order to discover their effects. There is the need to institutionalize preventive strategies against substance abuse in our secondary schools. Further studies in this area are also recommended.