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72 active trials for Substance Use

Unplugged, a Drug Use Prevention Program: Adaptation and Evaluation of Effectiveness Among Students in Chile

Substance use and drug related disorders are important public health problems. Alcohol and illicit drug use account for 5.4% of the total burden of disease and the peak has been found in early adulthood (between ages 20 and 30 years). Substance use is one of the leading problems among Chilean adolescents. One out of four 8 th to 12 th graders have smoked cigarettes in the last month. A 35.6% of students (37%, girls; 34.2%, boys) between Year 8 and Year 12 have reported any alcohol use during the last month. It is worrying that a third of 14 years old students report using alcohol in the last month in Chile. Furthermore, two out of three who are using alcohol, report regularly using 5 or more drinks in a row during the last month. Cannabis use among young Chileans has increased in recent years. Today, one out of five students between Year 8 and Year 12 referred cannabis use during the last 30 days. Almost a 20% of students in Year 8 have used cannabis in the last year. Therefore, is urgent to provide evidence-based drug preventive interventions to the Chilean population, specifically to school students, to tackle this problem and reduce the risk for a more dramatic future health scenario. The aim of this study is to develop a culturally appropriate version of the Unplugged program to the Chilean culture, and to test its effectiveness among early adolescents in low-income primary schools in Santiago, Chile. This project involves two stages: first, formative work, where the research team will review, adapt and pilot the Spanish version of the program to Chile; and second, the culturally adapted version of Unplugged program will be tested in a single-blind two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial. At the end of the intervention, investigators expect that students in schools receiving the Chilean version of Unplugged will have a lower proportion of substance use and a lower proportion of students passing from experimental use to regular use of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis, than in control schools.

Start: September 2019
Prevention of OUD: The HOME Project (Housing, Opportunities, Motivation and Engagement)

Homeless youth have a much higher rate of substance use than non-homeless peers with evidence suggesting that homeless youth have the highest rates of opioid use among youth subgroups in the country (Brands et al., 2005); heroin using homeless youth also appear to have the highest rates of IV drug use and HIV (Rhoades et al., 2014). Given the high rates of opioid use, exposure to violence, mental and physical health challenges, and high rates of mortality in homeless youth, it is surprising that no study to date utilizes a randomized controlled design to test prevention of opioid and other drug use among this vulnerable population. Resolution of youth homelessness through housing and prevention services, often referred to as "Housing First", as proposed in the current study, has great potential to reduce the likelihood for the development of an opioid use disorder as well as other problem behaviors associated with living on the streets. However, only 20-30% of homeless youth samples report ever having stayed at a crisis shelter, 9% report having ever accessed mental health services, and 15% report ever having received substance use treatment (Ray, 2006) indicating a need to reach and engage youth in services that are feasible and acceptable. This study will provide essential information for researchers and providers on the efficacy of housing + opioid and related risk prevention services in an RCT on opioid use, how moderators affect the response, and mechanisms underlying change.

Start: December 2019