Home > Brief school-based interventions and behavioural outcomes for substance-using adolescents.

Carney, Tara and Myers, Bronwyn and Louw, Johann and Okwundu, Charles I (2016) Brief school-based interventions and behavioural outcomes for substance-using adolescents. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (1), DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD008969.pub3.

External website: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1465185...

Key results: For outcomes that concern substance use, the studies assessed use of alcohol and cannabis. When compared to information provision, brief interventions are probably not more efficacious in reducing substance use or delinquent behaviour. When compared to assessment-only controls, the interventions may have some significant effects on substance use and behaviours. At short-term follow-up, brief interventions significantly reduced cannabis frequency in one study. At medium-term follow-up, brief interventions significantly reduced frequency of alcohol use, alcohol abuse and dependence symptoms, and cannabis abuse symptoms in one study. At long-term follow-up, brief interventions significantly reduced alcohol abuse, cannabis frequency, and cannabis abuse and dependence symptoms in one study.

The pattern of results indicates that adolescents who received a brief intervention generally did better in reducing their alcohol and cannabis use than adolescents who received no intervention at all. However, adolescents who received a brief intervention did not seem to do better in reducing their alcohol and cannabis use than adolescents who received information-only interventions. It is therefore premature to make definitive statements about the effectiveness of brief school-based interventions for reducing adolescent substance use.


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