Personality key to preventing illicit drug use in adolescents
11 January 2010
Interventions targeting personality factors shown to be effective in preventing onset of illicit drug use in adolescents. Researchers in the Addictions Department at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London have shown that providing adolescents with coping skills to manage their personality styles can prevent teens from taking up illicit drug use.
The Archives of General Psychiatry this month published details of the first study to demonstrate that targeting personality in prevention can produce large effects on drug use behaviour, with lasting effects up to two years.
The report describes the main outcomes of a randomised controlled trial conducted in 24 high schools across London. This study, conducted by Dr. Patricia Conrod, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist, involved randomising over 700 pupils to receive a 2-session group intervention focusing on understanding and managing specific personality traits or no intervention as a control condition. Pupils were surveyed every six months for two years and results showed that the intervention was associated with significantly fewer drug-taking events and less frequent drug use over a two year period.
Analyses on data from the 560 pupils who reported not having used illicit substances prior to randomisation revealed that the intervention was associated with a significantly greater likelihood of surviving two years in adolescence without taking up illicit substances. The strongest effects were revealed for cocaine use: the intervention group showed an 80% reduced likelihood of taking up cocaine use. Pupils who were randomised to the intervention condition were also 30% less likely to take up cannabis use and 50% less likely to take up other drug use.
The beneficial effects of the intervention on drinking and binge drinking behaviour were previously reported in an article published in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (link below).
The personality factors targeted in the intervention were Negative Thinking, Anxiety Sensitivity, Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking, factors that have been shown to differentially increase risk for adolescent substance misuse. In this study, Impulsivity and Negative Thinking were also shown to significantly predict risk for uptake of illicit substances. Sensation Seeking has been shown to be associated with elevated risk for binge drinking in previous studies by Dr. Conrod.
Dr. Conrod said that 'these are exciting results as no school-based intervention has been shown to be effective in preventing youth illicit drug use in the United Kingdom and very few prevention programmes have been shown to be effective when properly evaluated.'
The authors now wish to explore how to effectively implement this intervention programme across high schools in the UK. As the interventions were delivered by trained clinicians, another ongoing trial, the Adventure Trial, is currently examining the efficacy and feasibility of training school staff to deliver this programme to high school students.
The authors are Patricia Conrod, Natalie Castellanos-Ryan and John Strang and this study was funded by Action on Addiction, UK.
Brief, Personality-Targeted Coping Skills Interventions and Survival as a Non-Drug User Over a 2-Year Period During Adolescence: http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/67/1/85
Personality-targeted interventions delay the growth of adolescent drinking and binge drinking: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jcpp/2008/00000049/00000002/art00009;jsessionid=5dcbq8llj9f71.alice