Gender-Specific Effectiveness of the Unplugged Prevention Intervention in Reducing Substance Use among Czech Adolescents

Abstract

Impact evaluations of the school-based Unplugged prevention intervention have shown it to have a measurably positive preventive effect on the Czech school population, but only limited data are available to identify its effectiveness in gender-specifi c terms. This article seeks to determine the gender-specifi c effectiveness of this drug prevention programme. The authors conducted a randomised trial of the programme on a total of 1874 children (with a mean age of 11.8 years). They collected data using a questionnaire from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Baseline testing was conducted among sixth-grade students immediately prior to the programme's implementation, and fi ve follow-up tests were carried out 9, 12, 21, 24, and 33 months after the baseline testing. Gender-specifi c effectiveness was tested using three indicators: the 30-day prevalence of any tobacco or cannabis use and the 30-day prevalence of any drunkenness. The results comparing the experimental and control groups provide evidence of statistically signifi cant effects for any drunkenness among boys and any tobacco use among girls in the 30 days prior to testing. The programme was found to have positive effects on both genders' cannabis use, with girls showing lower levels of cannabis use even 33 months after the baseline test. Given the gender equality approach to drug prevention, differences in outcome may be overcome by adding gender-specifi c elements to the intervention programme's curriculum.

Smoking among Slovak Schoolchildren. Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Unplugged Programme

“…On the other hand, our study produced similar findings regarding the effect of Unplugged, which was moderated by gender, with a stronger effect for girls immediately and 12 months after the implementation of Unplugged. Gender-specific differences in the effect of this programme (with a stronger effect among girls) were also found among Czech students (Novák, Miovský, Gabrhelík, et al, 2013).…”

Systematic review of school-based interventions to prevent smoking for girls

“…Twenty-one studies were excluded from the pooled analysis for the following reasons: the outcome of interest (percent of starters) was not reported (eight studies) [ 28 , 29 , 36 , 45 , 54 , 57 – 59 ], the data was not reported by gender (five studies) [ 27 , 30 , 39 , 53 , 60 ], the data was not in a usable format—the number of girls who started smoking was not reported by intervention group (six studies) [ 32 , 34 , 35 , 42 , 52 , 56 ], or they compared a mass media intervention combined with school intervention versus a school intervention alone, so their control group was not usual care (two studies) [ 50 , 51 ]. Therefore, of the 37 included studies (described in 43 articles), 16 were analyzed in the pooled analysis [ 16 , 17 , 26 , 31 , 33 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 43 , 44 , 46 – 49 , 55 ] (see Fig.…”

Género Y Prevención De Drogodependencias: Evaluación Del Programa Escolar "Juego De Llaves"

“…Esta conclusión es congruente con otros estudios que señalan, por un lado, que la mayoría de los programas preventivos que se desarrollan, a pesar de estar diseñados siguiendo la evidencia científica, no prestan suficiente atención al género y deberían mejorar el proceso a través del cual tratan de incluir dicha perspectiva (Blake et al, 2001;European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2006;Fernández, Dema & Fontanil, 2020;Kumpfer et al, 2008). Y, por otro, que la incorporación de componentes que abordan situaciones de vulnerabilidad específicas en función del género en los programas de prevención universal podría mejorar su efectividad en ambos sexos (Kumpfer & Magalhães, 2016;Novák, Miovský, Gabrhelík, Šťastná & Jurystová, 2013;Vigna-Taglianti et al 2009). En este sentido, recientes estudios han apuntado la necesidad de considerar nuevas vulnerabilidades que surgen en los contextos de ocio en los que se produce un consumo abusivo de drogas, fundamentalmente alcohol, y un uso continuo de dispositivos tecnológicos como el móvil, que pueden derivar en una mayor exposición de las chicas a la violencia sexual y tecnológica (Romo-Avilés, García-Carpintero & Pavón-Benítez, 2019).…”