Original articlePrevention of Illicit Drug Use Through a School-Based Program: Results of a Longitudinal, Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial
Section snippets
Study design and participants
We conducted a cluster-randomized trial in which participating schools were randomized to either an intervention group or a control group. The inclusion criteria for school selection were as follows: (1) school authorities agreed to fully participate in the main session and two booster sessions of the drug use prevention program; (2) the school had licensed health education teachers who were willing to participate in the program; and (3) the same health education teacher was able to perform
Results
The demographic characteristics of the two study groups are summarized in Table 2. The two groups were similar in age (13.39 ± .55 years and 13.43 ± .60, respectively) and gender (male students, 51.1% and 54.1%, respectively). Moreover, no significant differences were observed between the two groups in other baseline variables (Table 2). The number of dropouts is shown in Figure 1.
Table 3 shows the proportion of participants reporting illicit drug use, cigarette smoking, and consumption of
Discussion
In this study, we used a longitudinal, cluster-randomized design to examine the effects of a school-based drug use prevention program that integrated aspects of the TPB and life skills. To our knowledge, no other intervention programs designed to prevent illicit drug use in adolescents have incorporated both TPB and life skills. The intervention program, comprising a main intervention and two booster sessions, was implemented at 12 middle schools among students aged 13–15 years, and showed
Acknowledgments
The authors thank all students and teachers who participated in the study.
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Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.