Alcohol & Drug Abuse Research Unit Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa.
Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. 2012 Jun 14;7:25. doi: 10.1186/1747-597X-7-25.
Information on the impact of available interventions that address adolescent substance use and delinquency can inform investment choices. This article aims to identify and evaluate early interventions that target adolescent substance use as a primary outcome, and criminal or delinquent behaviours as a secondary outcome.
A systematic review of early interventions for adolescent substance use and behavioural outcomes was conducted.
We identified nine studies using specific search strategies. All but one of the studies reported the use of brief intervention strategies. Only seven studies contained information which allowed for the calculation of an effect size, and were therefore included in the meta-analysis. The overall effect size for all outcomes combined was small but significant (g = 0.25, p < 0.001). The overall outcome for substance use was also small but significant (g = 0.24, p < 0.001). For studies with behavioural outcomes, the overall effect size reached significance (g = 0.28, p < 0.001). In general, subgroup analysis showed that individual interventions with more than one session had a stronger effect on the outcomes of interest.
Early interventions for adolescent substance use do hold benefits for reducing substance use and associated behavioural outcomes. Interventions are most promising if delivered in an individual format and over multiple sessions. One intervention in particular had large effect sizes. As all the interventions were tested in developed countries, further testing is needed in low- and middle-income countries where there is a lack of research on evidence-based interventions for adolescent risk behaviours. Additional recommendations for policy and practice are provided in this paper.
了解针对青少年物质使用和犯罪行为的现有干预措施的影响，可以为投资决策提供信息。本文旨在确定和评估以青少年物质使用为主要结果，以及犯罪或犯罪行为为次要结果的早期干预措施。
对青少年物质使用和行为结果的早期干预措施进行了系统评价。
我们通过特定的搜索策略确定了 9 项研究。除了一项研究外，所有研究都报告了使用简短干预策略。只有 7 项研究包含了可以计算效应大小的信息，因此被纳入荟萃分析。所有结果综合的总体效应大小较小但显著（g=0.25，p<0.001）。总体物质使用结果也较小但显著（g=0.24，p<0.001）。对于具有行为结果的研究，总体效应大小达到了显著水平（g=0.28，p<0.001）。一般来说，亚组分析表明，具有多个疗程的个体干预对相关结果的影响更大。
针对青少年物质使用的早期干预措施确实有助于减少物质使用和相关行为结果。如果以个体形式并通过多个疗程提供干预措施，则最有希望。特别是有一项干预措施具有较大的效应大小。由于所有干预措施都在发达国家进行了测试，因此需要在青少年风险行为缺乏循证干预措施的低收入和中等收入国家进一步测试。本文提供了有关政策和实践的其他建议。
