Assessment of Substance Use Behavior and Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Prevention and Ill Effects of Substance Abuse among Adolescents

Abstract

Background: Substance abuse has become a major problem in any growing society, the pattern ofconsumption of medical and non-medical use of drugs, especially by pre adolescents, adolescents and youngadults, is both complex and changing. In 1992, WHO declared June 26 as the International Day againstsubstance abuse and illicit trafficking1.Methods: It was a two-phase study, during phase-I of the study 485 adolescents were assessed for substanceuse behavior. During phase-II 100 adolescents were given structured teaching programme, pre-test and posttestknowledge and attitude were assessed.Results: The study results revealed that out of 485 adolescents only 3.2% (16) of the adolescents hadtried or experimented with substances and 11.1% (54) of the adolescents reported that their friends use thesubstance in the school. The calculated Z score value was found to be 11.316 which was greater than the tablevalue (1.98) indicates the effectiveness of structured teaching programme.There was a moderate positivecorrelation (0.568) between the post-test knowledge scores and post-test attitude scores of adolescents.Conclusion: The incidence of drug abuse among children and adolescents is higher than the generalpopulation. Therefore, keeping in focus, the investigator felt the need to conduct a research study to assessthe knowledge and attitude regarding the ill effects of substance abuse and its prevention among adolescents,and the study was found to be effective in increasing the knowledge and attitude among adolescents.