Cochrane

Review question: We reviewed evidence on the effects of brief school-based interventions for substance use and substance-related problem behaviours among adolescents. We found six studies. Background: Adolescents worldwide are known to use both legal and illegal substances, which can lead to other problems. These high rates of substance use are concerning, ...

Background Drug-using offenders by their nature represent a socially excluded group in which drug use is more prevalent than in the rest of the population. Pharmacological interventions play an important role in the rehabilitation of drug-using offenders. For this reason, it is important to investigate what we know works when pharmacological interventions ...

Background Drug-using offenders naturally represent a socially excluded group where drug use is more prevalent than in the rest of the population. A growing number of female offenders are being incarcerated for drug-related crimes. For this reason, it is important to investigate what we know about what works for female offenders. Study characteristics The ...

Background A number of policy directives are aimed at enabling people with drug problems to live healthy, crime-free lives. Drug-using offenders with co-occurring mental health problems represent a group who access treatment for a variety of different reasons. The complexity of the two problems makes the treatment and rehabilitation of this group ...

Review question We reviewed the evidence about the effect of psychosocial interventions, such as contingency management (CM) and motivational interviewing based (MIB) techniques vs. usual care for pregnant women in outpatient illicit drug treatment programmes. Background Women who use illicit drugs while pregnant are more likely to give birth early ...

Background Drug addiction is a long-term problem caused by an uncontrollable compulsion to seek drugs. It is a serious and growing problem. This makes it important to reduce the number of young people first using drugs, and to prevent the transition from experimental use to addiction. Schools offer the most systematic and efficient way of reaching ...

Background In developing countries, most people with mental, neurological and substance-abuse (MNS) disorders do not receive adequate care mainly because of a lack of mental health professionals. Non-specialist health workers, but also other professionals with health roles, such as teachers, may therefore have an important role to play in delivering ...

‘Dual diagnosis’ is the term used to describe people who have a mental health problem and also have problems with drugs or alcohol. In some areas, over 50% of all those with mental health difficulties will have problems with drugs or alcohol. For people with mental illness, substance misuse often has a negative and damaging effect on the symptoms of ...

Media campaigns to prevent illicit drug use are a widespread intervention. We reviewed 23 studies of different designs involving 188,934 young people and conducted in the United States, Canada and Australia. The studies tested different interventions and used several questionnaires to interview the young people about the effects of having participated ...

There are high rates of alcohol and drug use by many adolescents. Four randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were identified. All four RCTs were in the US and with adolescents described as deprived, and most were minority group adolescents. Two RCTs tested the "Across Ages" mentoring programme, one the Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentoring programme, and ...