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 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Drug use is widespread among young people including those still at school.Taking drugs is not a medical problem in itself but can affect physical andmental health and social functioning. People may become dependent on drugs, and use of low risk illicit drugs can escalate into use of higher riskdrugs. In schools, programs have been introduced to prevent ...