Unplugged: an european school based programme effective in preventing tobacco, alcohol and drug use among adolescents

Background: In the school-based drug abuse prevention field, a large number of programmes have been developed. However, in most cases the effectiveness of the programme in reducing drug use has not been evaluated. Moreover, most of the programmes come from the United States. For this reason the EC funded in 2003 the EU-Dap multicentric study. Methods: “Unplugged” is the first school-based prevention programme developed in Europe. It was designed by an international group of expert experimented in drug prevention in the frame of EUDAP study. It was then implemented and evaluated through a randomised controlled trial conducted between 2004 and 2006. In the second phase of EU-DAP the teacher handbook was largely revised, namely based on teacher feedback. Moreover, to complement the new teacher handbook a students workbook was developed intended as a personal workbook for the student and containing activities that students are to work through during the “Unplugged” units. The quiz cards, a set of cards used to teach the risk of drug use have also been revised. A part from the revision of the content a new appealing graphic version was developed. Results: “Unplugged” is a strongly interactive programme and consists of 12 units, each one with a standard structure. The results of effectiveness evaluation showed at post test, 3 months after the of the programme, a statistical significant reduction of daily smoking, drunkenness episodes and cannabis use among the intervention students towards the control. The effect on drunkenness and cannabis was maintained at 1 year follow-up. The programme is based on the comprehensive social influence approach, and includes a training of personal and social skills with a specific focus on normative beliefs. Unit 1 introduces the programme to the pupils. Units 3, 5 and 9 are designed to deal mainly with adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes. Units 2, 7 and 8 deal with interpersonal skills. Unit 4 includes activity on normative beliefs. Units 6, 10, 11 e 12 deal with intrapersonal skills. Conclusions: The “Unplugged” programme has a high degree of standardization: this makes it suitable to be disseminated in the different contexts of the European schools as well as to be adaptable to several language and culture-specific settings.