Brief cognitive behavioural interventions that help young people manage aspects of their personality, such as impulsivity, sensation seeking, hopelessness, and anxiety sensitivity, have been shown to reduce teen Substance Use Disorders. The American Journal of Psychiatry published the findings from a new cluster randomised trial involving 31 Canadian high schools and 3,800 students. The study, led by Dr. Patricia Conrod from Centre de recherche Azrieli du CHU Sainte-Justine, showed that when such interventions are delivered to students in the 7th grade they are associated with reduced risk for substance use disorders by the end of high school.
The study used multiple statistical approaches to manage missing data that comes with repeated school-based assessments. Over the course of this five-year follow-up, rates of substance use disorder grew significantly each year, with approximately 10% of the study participants screening positive for substance use disorder by the 11th grade. The study showed that the intervention delivered in the 7th grade was associated with reduced growth in substance use disorder in students attending schools that delivered the interventions. There was 95% confidence that the risk of substance use disorder was reduced in intervention schools compared to controls schools. Depending on year of follow-up and how missing data were treated, the intervention was associated with a 23%-80% reduced odds of SUD compared to the control condition.
PreVenture is already implemented in several schools in five Canadian provinces as well as twelve U.S. states. The interventions delivered as part of this program help young people explore individual differences in personality traits and the coping strategies that they are using to manage their personality. They are also taught cognitive and behavioural strategies that will help them to channel key personality traits towards long term goals.
Individual differences in personality are essential to a healthy society. However, when certain personality traits are mismanaged, young people will turn to substances to reduce the stress brought about by certain traits. "Some might find it surprising that two 90-minute workshops are sufficient to help youth learn personality-focused coping strategies that protect them against risk for substance use disorder over the long term, adds Dr. Conrod. However, the findings are not surprising if you consider the intervention promotes skills that protect young people in the short term by delaying onset of substance use, which is strongly linked risk of transitioning to substance abuse and dependence."
The author and senior investigator of the study, Patricia Conrod is a Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction at the Université de Montréal and holds a Canada Research Chair in Preventive Mental Health and Addiction. The study was conducted in collaboration with Montreal mother-child hospital CHU Sainte-Justine and 31 high schools across all school districts in the Greater Montreal Area.
"North America is in the midst of an addiction crisis," says Dr. Conrod. "This study adds to a growing body of evidence in favour of upstream preventive mental health interventions as potential solutions to this public health crisis."
Quotes
"Our experience implementing and scaling PreVenture in schools, Integrated Youth Services (Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario – YWHO) and other community-based settings in Ontario has been exceptional. By prioritizing prevention, PreVenture supports creating environments for youth that foster healthy decision-making and reduces the likelihood of substance use. There isn't any other program with the evidence-base like PreVenture, and our hope is that more and more youth can participate and benefit from this program." – Deb Chiodo, Director of Data Management and Evaluation at YWHO
"Overdose Lifeline, Inc. is a proud partner of the PreVenture team expanding access to this evidence based, easy to implement program." – Justin K. Phillips, MA, CEO, Indianapolis, IN.
"At this moment in time, the opportunity to implement and scale evidence based substance use prevention programs to decrease the harms caused by precocious problematic substance use is critical to decreasing the enormous impact of alcohol and substance use on the lives of young people. PreVenture has shown that prevention programs are feasible and necessary if we want a young people to live their best lives." - Dr. Steve Mathias, Co-Executive Director, Foundry (British-Columbia)
About the study
The CoVenture Trial is a cluster randomized trial that was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and aimed to test whether a school-based preventive mental health intervention (The PreVenture Program) could reduce risk for Substance Use Disorder over a 5-year period in adolescence. The trial involved over 3,800 students who completed a brief self-report personality questionnaire in the 7th grade assessing impulsivity, sensation seeking, anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness. Schools were randomly assigned to be trained and assisted in delivering personality-targeted brief cognitive behavioural interventions to student who reported elevated scores on one of these four traits. Interventions were two, 90-minute group workshops delivered in the 7th grade. All students were followed every year for five years on school-based digital assessments. Dr. Conrod supports an international team of researchers and knowledge transfer experts dedicated to worldwide dissemination and evaluation of this program ( www.preventureprogram.com ).
