In recent decades, an increase in the amount and frequency of alcohol and illicit drug consumption has been observed among Mexican adolescents. Brief intervention programs effectively reduce substance use and abuse in various populations. To determine the persuasiveness of the Brief Intervention Program for Adolescents who Begin the Abusive Substancrs of Alcohol and Other Drugs (PIBA) and the maintenance of the change in the young people who attended.
Alcohol Consumption
When comparing pre-intervention vs. During the follow-up, it was found that the adolescents who participated in the PIBA maintained a reduction in their consumption pattern (amount, frequency, and abstinence time) of alcohol, marijuana, and inhalants; problems associated with consumption decreased; and increased their level of perceived self-efficacy.
The improvement was greater in those who completed the brief intervention than in those who did not complete all the sessions.
Substance Abuse Intervention
The use of psychoactive substances modifies young people’s physical, mental, and behavioral capacities. Each Drug causes specific reactions in the psyche and the organism; consumers seek it for its pleasurable effects or to lessen unpleasant feelings.
social consequences
However, its abuse carries a potential for short- and long-term damage and negative psychological and social consequences in the lives of consumers and their families.
cognitive-behavioral
Brief interventions are cognitive-behavioral psychological therapies of short duration and high effectiveness, with low costs and favorable results in clinical practice.
addictive behaviors
The cognitive-behavioral approach considers that addictive behaviors are over-learned habits that can be modified through self-control techniques.
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy plays a relevant role in the initiation of drug use, the course of treatment, the maintenance of abstinence, and the prevention of relapses.
Brief interventions based on social learning theory, which also use components of motivational interviewing, relapse prevention, and self-management techniques, have been shown at the international and national levels to be effective for people with problematic drinking patterns who have not yet developed dependence.
Self-efficacy expectations refer to the individual’s beliefs about her ability to successfully face a situation; they are established, in part, by the individual’s repertoire of coping skills and by the assessment of relative effectiveness, concerning the specific demands of the situation.
They determine whether coping behavior is initiated, the effort required to exert it, and when a coping attempt must be continued in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences.
Self-efficacy influences individual behavior through the motivational, cognitive, and emotional systems.
If a person has low self-efficacy due to a lack of necessary skills, it is expected that they will have negative or distorted thinking and reduced motivation to try to cope.
Planning And Evaluation Of Treatments And Effective Drug Intervention
The results and conclusions derived from the monitoring can contribute to the plan and evaluation of treatments and effective intervention techniques and improve its main components. However, only some studies report follow-ups carried out after a year or more after the conclusion of the brief intervention. Due to the above, the objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of a brief intervention aimed at the adolescent population that begins to abuse alcohol and other drugs through the evaluation of the maintenance of change, carried out through follow-up.
Pre-intervention assessments and follow-ups were performed on each participant. The variables used to determine the program’s effectiveness were:
- The amount of use.
- Frequency per week.
- Negative consequences associated with use.
- Perceived self-efficacy in quitting substance use.
A novel aspect of the present study was that it allowed us to corroborate the positive results of the PIBA in a setting for training therapists at the master’s level: the Center for Prevention in Addictions of the Faculty of Psychology of the UNAM, whose mission is to promote the professional training of student and, in this way, have an impact on the field of drug use prevention.
The proposed hypothesis was that the adolescents who completed the brief intervention would maintain greater positive changes in the dependent variables evaluated, in contrast to those who dropped out of the brief intervention.