'Drugs and friends' : evaluating a drug prevention programme

Abstract

One of the current drug prevention and educational programmes in Malta is the 'Drugs and Friends' project, a programme run by Caritas in secondary schools with 13 year olds. Designed as a tool for prevention intervention, the programme has been running for two years. This study carries out an evaluation of the effectiveness of the 'Drugs and Friends' programme. The aim of this study is twofold, firstly to measure the effects of the prevention intervention on the sample's knowledge and attitudes towards alcohol and tobacco, secondly to evaluate the content and procedure in which the programme is conducted, from the participants' point of view. The sample is made up of 62 female students from a Junior Lyceum. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for gathering data Quantitative data about knowledge and attitudes towards alcohol and tobacco was gathered both before and after the programme was run by means of a self-completion questionnaire. Another short questionnaire was constructed and used for gathering data related to the content and procedure. Three focus groups were conducted from which qualitative data related to the effects of the programme as perceived by the sample was collected. The results from both methods were found to complement each other. An inconsistency emerges from the data between knowledge and attitudes, showing that an increase in accurate knowledge does not necessarily imply an increase in positive attitudes. The data clearly shows that the 'Drugs and Friends' programme has been effective in increasing correct knowledge among the sample and to a much lesser degree effective in influencing changes in attitudes towards alcohol and tobacco.