Abstract
BackgroundMost Brazilian schools do not have a continuous program for drug use prevention and do not conduct culturally adapted activities for that purpose. This study evaluated the impact of the Unplugged program on drug use prevention among children and adolescents in public middle schools of Brazil.MethodsA non-randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2013 with 2185 students in 16 public schools from 3 Brazilian cities. The intervention group attended 12 weekly classes of the Unplugged program for drug use prevention, and the control group did not attend to any school prevention programs in the same year. Multilevel analyses were used to evaluate temporal and between group changes in the consumption of each drug.ResultsThe study suggested that there was no evidence that Unplugged effected 11- to 12-year-old students. However, the program seemed to stimulate a decrease in recent marijuana use (transition from use to non-use in 85.7% of intervention cases and 28.6% of control cases, OR = 17.5, p = 0.039) among 13- to 15-year-old students. In addition, students in this age range who received the Unplugged program had similar drug consumption levels to those observed before the program began. However, students in the control group presented a significant tendency to increase marijuana use and binge drinking.ConclusionsThis study adds to the evidence of program efficacy among Brazilian middle school students by presenting marginal effects on binge drinking and marijuana use. An 18-month randomized controlled trial is recommended for a future study.
Highlights
Most Brazilian schools do not have a continuous program for drug use prevention and do not conduct culturally adapted activities for that purpose
The abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs by adolescents significantly contributes to the global burden of disease and years of life lost in this age range [1]
This paper presents the preliminary results of the effects of the Unplugged program to prevent the use of alcohol, tobacco, inhalants, marijuana, cocaine, and crack among 11- to 15-year-old students
Summary
Most Brazilian schools do not have a continuous program for drug use prevention and do not conduct culturally adapted activities for that purpose. This study evaluated the impact of the Unplugged program on drug use prevention among children and adolescents in public middle schools of Brazil. The consumption of psychoactive substances during adolescence is growing, making prevention among this age group a basic issue of public health [2]. School is recognized as an adequate setting for the implementation of programs that aim to reduce or delay the start of drug consumption among adolescents because of its universal. Unplugged is a prevention program for adolescents between 11 and 14 years old that aims to delay the onset and interrupt the progression of substance consumption. Its effectiveness in reducing consumption has been first evaluated in a wide multicentric study in seven European countries [8], and later it was evaluated in a smaller study conducted in the Czech Republic [9]
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