Iniciação e consumo de substâncias psicoativas entre adolescentes e adultos jovens de Centro de Atenção Psicossocial Antidrogas/CAPS-AD Initiation and consumption of psychoactive substances among adolescents and young adults in an Anti-Drug Psychosocial Care Center

Abstract The study seeks to characterize the ini-tiation and consumption pattern of psychoactivesubstances among adolescents and young adultsenrolled in an Alcohol and Drug Psychosocial CareCenter (CAPS-AD). This study was conductedwith records of attendance and the consumptionpattern was classified in accordance with WHO:infrequent use (lifetime use, per year or up to fivedays per month); frequent use (6 to 19 times inthe past 30 days); heavy use (> 20 times in thelast 30 days). In the age group comparison, thetest for proportion and association analysis wasused and the prevalence and prevalence ratio wascalculated with a significance level of 5% and 95%confidence interval. Of the total of adolescents andyoung adults treated between 2003 and 2008 (475),most were male, single, poorly educated, live withrelations and have psychic symptoms. Statisticalsignificance was found for age at initiation of use:adolescents compared to young adults started ear-lier (< 14 years): tobacco, marijuana, cocaine,crack and other SPA consumption. Among ado-lescents, significant results were found for the lessfrequent consumption of tobacco, more frequentuse of alcohol, and heavy consumption of mari-juana. These findings may contribute to the pre-ventive and therapeutic CAPS-AD programs.