Designing and Implementing Preventive Educational Program for Avoiding Psychoactive Drug Abuse based on Prototype /Willingness Model among college Students

Introduction & Objective: Recreational drug use among young people has been on the increase in recent years that it produces health problems. The effect of interventional programs on attitudes and intention against drug abuse, subjective norms, and knowledge about side effect of psychoactive drugs and drug abuse related behaviors among university students was studied based on Prototype/Willingness model as a theoretical framework. Materials & Methods: A quasi-experimental study carried out in the students’ universities of Hamadan city in the 2008-2009 academic years. A total number of 140 students were selected through randomized cluster sampling and randomly assigned to the intervention (n=70) and the control (n=70) groups. Educational curriculum was designed based on students’ educational needs. Before intervention 6 students who were known as a favorite and leader of students, were selected by student’s opinion in interventional group students' leaders. The each leader of the group had a coordinator and mediate role between his groups. A questionnaire, based on the PWM, assessed the variables of attitudes, subjective norms, intention, prototype and willingness. Results: The result showed that educational manipulation had significant effect on intervention group’s average response for knowledge (t= -12.78, p<0.000) , and attitude against drug abuse (t= 4.49, p<0.000), subjective norms (t=8.26, p<0.000), intention (t= 5.78, p<0.000), prototype(t= 6.93, p<0.000), and willingness(t= 4.63, p<0.000). Conclusion: These findings suggest that applying Prototype/Willingness Model would be an efficient tool for preventing drug abuse education programs but further studies are needed to define function of willingness versus intention for creating social inoculation against drug abuse among non-drug expose students.