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Background
In most European junior and senior
high schools, interventions take place to protect against using alcohol, tobacco
and other drugs. Most of these programmes, however, have never been adequately
evaluated through a rigorous scientific
methodology.
In the absence of drug use
prevention programmes with solid evidence of effectiveness, there is a need to
evaluate programmes, especially in European countries. The EU-Dap project aims
to fill this gap in knowledge.
The EU-Dap project aims to provide
European schools and health authorities with useful information to implement
effective interventions for the prevention of drug use, and with methods to
evaluate the effectiveness of such school-based interventions.
The programme
tested was specifically designed for European schools, using principles and
methods deemed as most useful in preventing drug use.
Evaluation results of phase I demonstrated that the EU-Dap programme was
effective in reducing the onset of smoking, alcohol intoxication and use of
other drugs.
Unplugged – the School Programme Tested
The programme curriculum named
"Unplugged" which was evaluated in phase I was created by a team of European
public health practitioners and researchers known as the EU-Dap
Intervention
Planning Group. The programme is based on the Comprehensive
Social Influence Model* and aims for universal prevention**.
* Comprehensive Social Influence programmes
combine life skills education with normative education and knowledge acquisition
on substances
** universal
prevention refers to activities aiming to avoid or delay the use of substances
by all youths, irrespective of their background risk profile. The assumption of
universal prevention is that it is important to reduce the whole bulk of new
users.
During the evaluation in phase I, the
"Unplugged" programme was administered in randomly selected intervention
schools, while control schools proceeded without the programme.
Intervention schools also combined
parental involvement or leadership of class peers.
Three combinations were implemented in
three groups of intervention schools:
-
Basic curriculum: "Unplugged"
programme led by teachers to students;
-
Parent component: "Unplugged"
programme plus the involvement of parents;
-
Class-Peer component: "Unplugged"
programme plus the involvement of peers.
The "Unplugged" curriculum consists in
12 one-hour lessons, administered by school teachers, trained in a specific 2.5
day training session.
The curriculum and full descriptions of the lessons are available for free.
Study Procedure
The implementation and evaluation of the
EU-Dap programme was developed by researchers and practitioners of the
Study Design Group
.
Nine centres
in seven countries coordinated the study in
respective regions.
A minimum of 15 schools were recruited
by each centre whereas the centres in Stockholm and Turin engaged twice as many
schools. The characteristics of the participating schools were defined by the
Search Coordinating Group (SCG)
and are described in the
Study Protocol
.
Random Assignment of Schools
The three intervention
combinations were compared to a control group. The assignment of schools to the
intervention or control conditions was done at random by the study
coordinating centre. Within each school, at least two classes
participated. The intervention schools followed the "Unplugged" programme and
the control schools followed, if anything, the usual health education programme.
Evaluation of Results
The programme aimed to reduce the
use of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other drugs. The research team examined
the differences in initial use and regular use between youth in the intervention
and control schools by way of a self-completed
questionnaire.
The questionnaire was administered
to students of both intervention and control schools during the first month of
the 2004-2005 school year to collect baseline information on:
·
social environment;
·
one's own substance use;
·
knowledge and opinions about
substances;
·
substance use in the immediate
environment;
·
family and social environment;
·
school environment and school climate;
·
problems and skills.
Using the same questionnaire, a second
assessment took place three months after completing the “Unplugged” programme
(May-June 2005). A subsequent follow-up took place one year after the first
follow-up (September-October 2006) in order to evaluate the long-term
effectiveness of the "Unplugged" programme.
To protect the identity of the youth and the confidentiality of their
responses, the questionnaires were identified by a code
that was independently generated by each participant. A total of 150 schools and
over 7000 students participated in the EU-Dap Trial.
The
implementation of the "Unplugged" programme
The "Unplugged"
curriculum (12 school-hours) was led by trained teachers in the intervention
classes. These teachers participated in a 2.5 day training session prior to the
start of the programme where they received the "Unplugged" teaching manual.
The Parent component included three evening seminars led by an expert outside
the school who was appointed by the local EU-Dap coordinator.
The Class-Peer component was carried
out by designated students in each class with minimal supervision by the
teachers.
The “Unplugged” lessons were taught during the 2004-2005 school year. The total
class time required to teach the lessons is shown in the following table:
(click to see the table)
The project overview with timeline is outlined in the following table:
(click to see the table)
The implementation of the programme,
the difficulties experienced by the teachers in implementing the Units, and
possible suggestions for improvements were investigated and registered through
specific
monitoring forms all along the
implementation phase.
What are the results?
The "Unplugged" programme was found to
be effective in preventing the onset of alcohol, tobacco and other drug use. The
parental and peer components did not add any additional effectiveness to the
"Unplugged" programme. However, anecdotal feedback from parents and teachers
indicate that the parental component adds value to the programme.
More details can be found in the
EU-Dap Final Report
EU-Dap has been funded for a second
phase which started 1 May 2006. The project team aims to spread the programme
and research methods and results in new regions and
countries. Centres in the Prague, Czech Republic and Poznan, Poland have
joined the EU-Dap Consortium.
The activities in Phase II include
revising the “Unplugged” Teaching Manual, producing a dissemination guide for
teachers, principals and decision-makers, and evaluating the uptake of
comprehensive social influence programmes.
Revised version of “Unplugged”
Revisions were based on teacher
feedback and barriers identified during EU-Dap phase I, and were made by the
Intervention Review Group.
The revised version of “Unplugged”
includes:
-
A new lesson order
-
A student workbook
-
Shorter lessons for easier
implementation
-
Innovative activities
According to the new structure, the 12
lessons are:
1.
Opening Unplugged
2.
To be or not to be in a group
3.
Choices – Alcohol, Risk and Protection
4.
Your beliefs, norms and information –
do they reflect reality?
5.
Smoking the cigarette drug – Inform
yourself
6.
Express yourself
7.
Get up, stand up
8.
Party tiger
9.
Drugs - Get informed
10.
Coping competences
11.
Problem solving and decision making
12.
Goal setting
The student’s workbook, newly
developed, is intended as a personal workbook of the student, and contains
activities that students are to work through during the Unplugged units.
Apart from the revision of the
Unplugged materials, a new appealing graphic version was developed, and the new
program, together with the student workbook and the cards, is
freely available.
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