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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 2013, 15, 1 (pages: 21 - 28)

“A School for Life”. Monitoring of a multidisciplinary prevention intervention experience in four Neapolitan Schools

Curcio F., Capraro C., D'Ascoli G., Focaccio F., Gaveglia M., Longobardo A., Losasso C., Masucci S., Parente M., Petti M., Plenzik M., Villano G., Veneruso C., Molinaro S., Siciliano V., De Rosa G.

Summary: Drug Addiction Unit No. 31 operating in the Centre of Naples for the city's Local Health Authority (“U.O. Ser.T. 31, ASL Napoli1 Centro”) has implemented the project called “A School for Life”. The project's aims were to: 1) Get adolescent schoolchildren involved in the problems arising from exposure to psychoactive drugs”; 2) Monitor epidemiological data; 3) Evaluate the efficiency of the instruments used. Teachers, students and opinion leaders were involved. Workshops were set up to make the intervention more incisive. The programme was evaluated by teachers. 1,234 adolescents and 93 teachers participated; students took part in a course for peer-operators. Teacher evaluation showed an increase in project quality over time; an increase in cigarette and alcohol use emerged from the questionnaires administered to the schoolchildren; the use of alcoholic beverages and habitual drunkenness were seen. We recommend a policy of prevention that should be focused on the use of alcoholic beverages and drugs in Middle Schools.