Drug Prevention Programs Research Articles

Evaluability assessment of drug prevention programs

Evaluability assessment of drug prevention programs

Qualitative Assessment on the Impact of Family-Based Drug Prevention Program by the National Anti-Drugs Agency in Malaysia

Family-based prevention programs aim to prevent youth from falling victim to substance abuse issues by focusing on what families can offer. This study attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the Family on Alert (FoA) program conducted by NADA. A qualitative method was utilized involving focus group discussions with key informants from NADA in the state of Selangor, Kedah, Johor, Sabah, and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. NVivo software was used to analyze the qualitative data. Generally, the FoA program implemented by NADA has positively impacted the participants, particularly in increasing the awareness, knowledge, and attitude among parents in preventing drug abuse among adolescents in Malaysia.

Policy brief on youth tailor made drug prevention programs in Kenya

Policy brief on youth tailor made drug prevention programs in Kenya

The role of monitoring skills in mediating the association between parent's hazardous alcohol consumption and adolescents' drinking.

This study aimed to investigate whether parental monitoring skills mediate the effect of hazardous parental alcohol consumption on adolescents' lifetime alcohol use. This three wave longitudinal study was conducted with 884 families (n = 1,768 participants) to evaluate the effectiveness of a family-based drug prevention program for adolescents and parents across 12 Brazilian cities. We used structural equation mediation modeling to analyze the effect of hazardous parental alcohol consumption at baseline on adolescents' lifetime alcohol use at 12-month follow-up, mediated by parental monitoring skills latent dimension at 6-month follow-up. We found a significant indirect effect of parents' hazardous alcohol use on adolescents' alcohol use through parental monitoring (OR:1.18, 95%CI:1.02;1.36). Our finding underscores the importance of comprehensive preventive family alcohol approaches targeting adolescent alcohol use, which should consider both parental drinking behavior and monitoring practices.

Validity Evidence for an Observational Fidelity Measure to Inform Scale-Up of Evidence-Based Interventions.

As evidence-based interventions are scaled, fidelity of implementation, and thus effectiveness, often wanes. Validated fidelity measures can improve researchers' ability to attribute outcomes to the intervention and help practitioners feel more confident in implementing the intervention as intended. We aim to provide a model for the validation of fidelity observation protocols to guide future research studying evidence-based interventions scaled-up under real-world conditions. We describe a process to build evidence of validity for items within the Session Review Form, an observational tool measuring fidelity to interactive drug prevention programs such as the Botvin LifeSkills Training program. Following Kane's (2006) assumptions framework requiring that validity evidence be built across four areas (scoring, generalizability, extrapolation, and decision), confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized two-factor structure measuring quality of delivery (seven items assessing how well the material is implemented) and participant responsiveness (three items evaluating how well the intervention is received), and measurement invariance tests suggested the structure held across grade level and schools serving different student populations. These findings provide some evidence supporting the extrapolation assumption, though additional research is warranted since a more complete overall depiction of the validity argument is needed to evaluate fidelity measures.

Qualitative Assessment on the Impact of Family-Based Drug Prevention Program by the National Anti-Drugs Agency in Malaysia

Qualitative Assessment on the Impact of Family-Based Drug Prevention Program by the National Anti-Drugs Agency in Malaysia

The effectiveness of drug prevention programs among children in schools

The problem of discipline and moral decay nowadays in society in Malaysia is very concerning, especially among children and teenagers, as it spreads very fast and keeps being very difficult to deal with. Drug abuse is a big problem that is spreading among the world community and this will have a very bad effect especially the development of human capital. This study aimed to find out the effectiveness of Drug Prevention Programs among children at school. From this Program we want to know the level of awareness, knowledge, skills, and spirituality among children. This study has used quantitative design and is supported by qualitative data. The first phase is a case study that uses the interview with teachers and government anti-drug agency officers who are involved in the implementation of the program. For the second phase of the study, researchers have used the survey method by distributing questionnaires to the recipient subjects, who are primary school students in at-risk states who have been selected to follow the drug prevention program. The results of the survey show that all the indicators of the effectiveness of the participants, namely awareness, knowledge, skills, and spirituality, have a high percentage, with percentage values of 78.0%, 93.4%, 84.2%, and 93.4%. Overall, of the study show that the implementation of the drug prevention program in schools has achieved its objectives, in addition to paying attention to the effectiveness factors as well as the obstacles and weaknesses encountered.

Prevalence and Causes of Drug Abuse among Youth-Recipients of School-Based Drug Education Programs: A Mixed-Method Study

This study investigated the impact of school-based drug education programs on drug use behavior through examining the prevalence and causes of drug abuse and addiction among youth-recipients (16-30 years) of drug education (DE) programs in Nigeria. A concurrent embedded mixed-method design was adopted for the study and data were collected with a questionnaire and an interview schedule on drug use behaviors. Results showed that drug abuse prevalence ranged from 3.8% for cocaine to 23.7% for alcohol, with daily addiction levels ranging from 1.3% to 5.0%. Depression, peer pressure, and social/economic hardships cause drug abuse. Drug education and gender influence drug use behavior. Drug abusers possess health, social, legal, and moral knowledges about drug use, with youth drug-abusers redefining responsible use by promoting the notion of “civilized use”. The study concluded that mainstream curricular drug prevention programs have little impact on drug use behavior since its recipients still abuse drugs. Drug education research, policy, and practice implications of the findings were discussed.

Collaborative Governance in Countering Drug Control in Makassar City

This study seeks to determine how collaborative governance has been implemented in Makassar City’s drug prevention efforts. This study employs a qualitative, descriptive methodology. Observation, interviews, and documentation are methods for collecting data. In Yin’s case study pattern matching model, the data analysis technique is used. The results demonstrated leadership facilitation, with each collaborating actor demonstrating a dependable capacity for activity implementation and problem-solving. Each organization has a decision-maker and policy-maker in charge. In institutional institutions, the division of roles and responsibilities is specified in the Cooperation Agreement. In the process of collaboration, formal and informal communication channels are established to foster mutual trust, and each party’s Cooperation Agreement guides the implementation of collaboration. The true outcome of collaborative action is the achievement of the program goals of each government agency, the community, and the private sector, as well as reducing drug use in Makassar City. The outcomes indicated that Anshel and Gash’s Collaborative Government model was suitable for the drug prevention program in Makassar City. In institutional institutions, Anshel and Gash’s CG mode necessitates the creation of a more detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) because the rules in collaboration only refer to the Cooperation Agreement.
 Keywords: collaborative governance, drug control, collaboration actors

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a School base Drug Prevention Program (the 'Pa SU no Ndém'): Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial among Secondary School Students in Douala, Cameroon (Preprint)

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a School base Drug Prevention Program (the 'Pa SU no Ndém'): Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial among Secondary School Students in Douala, Cameroon (Preprint)

An Overview of Drug Abuse: Causes, Effects, and Control Measures

This study was conducted to assess the causes, effects, and control measures of drug abuse. The review was composed of literature search from databases (Google Scholar, Science Direct, Springer, Scopus and PubMed). Major findings from this study includes:
 
 a) Causes of Drug Abuse: The causes of drug abuse varies from social, interpersonal, cultural, environmental, and family factors. People abuse drugs due to pleasure derived from it. Drug abuse can be socially learned through drug use by peer group members, exposure to offers to use, and easy access to drugs. Pressure from friends that abuse drugs including their frequent escalation of drug experience may appeal others to start the use of drugs. Curiosity arising from recurrent references to drugs by public media generate curiosity for having a personal experience of the drugs. Growing up in a single-parent family, lack of parental support or supervision as well as low involvement with the child, and exposure of children to elders in the family who take drugs can promote drug use. Frustration and depression could make some people to take drugs to experience relief or relief from pain mostly from a prolonged use of pain-relieving drugs prescribed by a doctor.
 b) Effects of Drug Abuse: The signs or harmful effects of drug abuse could be physical, emotional, family dynamics, school behaviours, and social problems. They include cardiovascular disease; abnormalities in brain structure and function; respiratory problems; weakened immune system; insomnia; reduction in libido or sexual dysfunction; anxiety and irritability; loss or increase in appetite; and poor judgment. Different crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping, and rape have been identified with young people under the influence of drugs. Family dynamics will reflect in the form of secretiveness, withdrawing from family, starting arguments, and breaking rules. For the school behaviours, the teenager will begin to play truancy, display discipline problems, decline in grades, decreased interest, many absences, and subsequently withdrawal from school. In terms of social problems, the teenager will begin to have problems with the law, have new friends, abnormal request for money, changes to less conventional styles in dress and music.
 c) Control Measures for Drug Abuse: Effective drug prevention programs should involve the family, schools, communities, and the media. This includes creating healthy home environment (functional family communication or interaction, parents taking extra measures to monitor the activities of their children including their associations, reduce child’s exposure to drug users in the family). Government should provide easy and affordable access to rehabilitation centres, implement effective addiction counselling and prevention programmes, provide policies that would address the wider availability of drugs in the society, create job opportunities for youth to become self-reliant; develop effective awareness/campaign programs on drug abuse; establish recreational centres; and finally religiosity can prevent people from using drugs even if they are exposed to drugs in the environment.

Effectiveness of Digital Health Tools to Prevent Bullying among Middle School Students

Bullying is a widespread public health problem with significant behavioral and mental health consequences. The current study tested the effectiveness of combining interactive digital material for students, educators, and parents with class sessions to prevent bullying among middle school students. Fourteen middle schools were randomly assigned to intervention and comparison conditions. Both conditions received a classroom-based drug and violence prevention program that taught social skills, self-management skills, and social resistance skills. The intervention condition included class material on bullying and an educational video game for students that reinforced the classroom program; it also included digital material on bullying for parents and school staff. All students completed online pre- and post-test surveys to assess bullying-related behavior, knowledge, and life skills. Results indicated that students in the intervention schools reported significantly less bullying and cyberbullying perpetration and increased life skills knowledge relative to comparison schools. This study provides evidence that a school-based drug abuse and violence prevention program, when enhanced with a set of digital tools for students, parents, and school staff, holds considerable potential for addressing bullying among middle school adolescents.

Cerebrolysin Treatment Reduces the Risk of Mild Cognitive Decline to Dementia in 1st-Degree Relatives of Alzheimer's Patients: A Prospective Comparative Study

To evaluate the long-term effects of annual course therapy with Cerebrolysin on cognitive functioning and the risk of transition to dementia in relatives of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) with amnestic-type mild cognitive decline syndrome (aMCI) in comparison with the same group untreated relatives. The cohort included 88 first-degree relatives of BA patients with aMCI syndrome aged 50 to 82 years (mean age 65.0±9.9 years) of which 46 people received course therapy with Cerebrolysin and 42 people were not treated. Clinical, neuropsychological, statistical methods were used. Conducted annual course therapy with Cerebrolysin (a total of 3 courses of infusion therapy: for a course of 20 intravenous infusions of 20 ml of Cerebrolysin in 100 ml of isotonic saline) followed by a follow-up study after 3 months after the end of the therapeutic period. The dynamics of cognitive functioning in the therapeutic group was compared with the corresponding dynamics in the comparison group over the same period. The assessment was carried out on day 0, by the end of 1, 14, 27 and 30 months research. In the therapeutic group, according to the CGI-I scale, by the end of the 3rd course of therapy, in 95.7% of cases, a pronounced or moderate improvement was achieved after each of the courses on all scales and tests. In this group, by the end of the therapeutic period, a significant improvement in the initial mean group scores was established. According to the all scales and tests, a significant improvement of the initial average group scores was found after each course of therapy (p<0.05). In the comparison group there was a significant deterioration (p<0.05) of the average group scores of most of the cognitive scales and test by the end of the observation. The annual conversion from aMCI to dementia due to probable AD was 9.5% only in the comparison group. The average group indicators of all scales and tests significantly worsened starting from the 14th month of observation in the comparison group. The absence of cases of aMCI conversion to dementia in the treated patients for 2.5 years of observation can serve as confirmation of a disease-modifying effect in Cerebrolysin. These results indicate the need for more extensive clinical studies of the preventive effects of Cerebrolysin and to explore the possibility of including such therapy in drug prevention programs for AD in people at high risk for this disease.

Updated systematic review of Australian school-based prevention programmes for alcohol and other drugs: a review protocol

IntroductionAdolescent onset substance use is associated with neurodevelopmental, social and psychological harms. Thus, alcohol and other drug prevention programmes are essential to promote health and well-being during this period. Schools...

Psychoactive Substance Effect on Mental Health and Well-Being Focusing on Student-Aged Lithuanian Cohort of Sexual Minorities

Mental health refers to cognitive, behavioral, and emotional well-being. However, significant research gaps are still found in disclosing the disparities in mental health outcomes between heterosexual and sexual minority (SM) individuals during the period of 20–24 years of age. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the association between the prevalence of psychoactive substance use and the severity of anxiety or depressive symptoms, and well-being across SM and non-SM student-aged populations (N = 1330). This cross-sectional study was conducted in Lithuania over the period of fifteen months following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study concentrated on the mental health symptomatology, well-being status, and the prevalence of the psychoactive substance use, which were measured by three screening instruments. In terms of negative well-being, mental health problems, and health-risk behaviors, it was found that the SMs were potentially more exposed than the non-SMs. The current study also revealed a significant impact of substance use (alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking) on the symptoms of anxiety (adjusted odds ratios (AOR) 1.6 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.0–2.6), AOR 1.5 (95% CI: 1.0–2.2)), and negative well-being (AOR 1.7 (95% CI: 1.0–2.8), AOR 1.7 (95% CI: 1.1–2.5)) across the SM student-aged group. The association between the increased self-administration of cannabis and positive mental health outcomes appertained to milder anxiety symptoms amid SMs has been identified (AOR 0.5 (95% CI: 0.2–0.9)). Given that minority stressors could play an important part in mediating between the sexual orientation and negative outcomes of mental and behavioral health in student-aged populations, health strategies should focus on the development of effective substance abuse and drug prevention programs, both student-centered and SMs-centered, aimed to reduce health-risk behaviors in emerging adulthood.

Ho‘ouna Pono implementation: applying concept mapping to a culturally grounded substance use prevention curriculum in rural Hawai‘i schools

BackgroundDespite their potential to ameliorate health disparities and address youth substance use, prevention programs have been poorly disseminated and implemented across Hawai‘i, which begs the question: Why are effective prevention programs not being used in communities most in need of them? Implementing and sustaining culturally grounded prevention programs is critical to address equitable healthcare and minimize health disparities in communities. The field of implementation science provides frameworks, theories, and methods to examine factors associated with community adoption of these programs.MethodOur project applies concept mapping methods to a culturally grounded youth drug prevention program with state level educational leadership in rural Hawai‘i schools. The goal is to integrate barrier and facilitator salience collected through teacher and school staff surveys and specific implementation strategies to regionally tailored implementation plans on Hawai‘i island. This protocol paper describes the concept mapping steps and how they will be applied in public and public-charter schools.DiscussionImproving prevention program implementation in rural schools can result in sustained support for populations that need it most. The project will integrate implementation science and culturally grounded methods in rural Hawai‘i, where most youth are of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander descent. This project addresses health disparities among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth and provides actionable plans for rural Hawai‘i communities to implement effective prevention programming.

Transition from nonmedical prescribed opioids to non-injection heroin use among young integrated Thai male users in Bangkok

Opioid use and misuse are understudied in Thailand despite evidence suggesting that a portion of young Thai male integrated drug users are initiating use of non-medical prescribed opioids with some transitioning to heroin. This study aims to capture and analyze the individual and social factors influencing these transitions. Twenty in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted between December 2019 and January 2020 in the Bangkok metropolitan area with young male opioid users who transitioned to heroin. Sixteen respondents initiated opioid through a Tramadol cocktail named “YaPro” and tended to transition to heroin use within 21 months. The interaction of specific social and individual factors such as joining recreational activities, curiosity or experimentation gradually modified the opioid-related meanings, attitude and practices of Thai users, who ultimately transition to heroin use. These results indicate that drug prevention programs in Thailand should encompass young opioid users in their intervention and further research need to focus on nonmedical use of prescription opioids in Thailand.

The influence of personality traits on moral disengagement and drug use among adolescents with discipline problems

This study aimed to assess the influence of the Big Five personality traits, namely openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism on an individual inclination to moral disengagement and drug use. A total of 132 fourteen to seventeen-year-old adolescents with discipline problems from the secondary schools in Selangor, Malaysia was involved in the study. Employing correlational designs, the data were collected by using standardised questionnaires including the Moral Disengagement Scale, the Big Five Inventory, and the Drug Abuse Screening Test. The results showed that personality traits had a strong relationship with moral disengagement and drug use. More precisely, the study discovered a positive correlation between neuroticism and moral disengagement and drug use. Furthermore, the findings revealed that moral disengagement had an indirect effect on drug use through neuroticism, which served as a mediator between the two variables studied. The findings suggested that neuroticism was a personality trait associated with moral disengagement and drug use in adolescents who struggled with discipline problems. These factors have implications for school counselling and drug treatment and prevention programmes. Further recommendations and future research on this topic have been suggested in this article.

Mediating Factors of a Brazilian School-Based Drug Prevention Program

Mediating Factors of a Brazilian School-Based Drug Prevention Program

Managing family conflict and resilience. Results of a universal socio-educative family drugs prevention program developed in school settings

This paper assesses changes in family conflict and resilience among families participating in a socio-educative short universal drug prevention program (PCF-U 11-14). A pre-post test quasi experimental design with control and experimental groups was implemented with 275 families. The work addresses the convenience of family training in social and parenting skills to strengthen families’ capacity to cope with difficulties and boosting family cohesion, but it also highlights the need to research deeper into the factors that affect parent and adolescent conflict to create new training strategies for families.