Primary school students' knowledge of different aspects of drug abuse: Implications for planning educational prevention programs

Abstract

The assumption regarding the effectiveness of educational prevention programs as inevitable segments of social policy in the domain of drug abuse prevention in school population is based on the compatibility of the information presented during educational lectures and the students' actual knowledge of drug abuse problem. Qualitative research was conducted with the aim to determine the scope of primary school children's knowledge of different aspects of drug abuse, and with the aim to draw conclusions about the structure and content of educational prevention programs which could be applied to primary school children with regard to general principles of prevention program planning based on previous test results. The data was collected from groups of participants by applying the discussion technique. The sample consisted of 640 eighth grade students from nine Belgrade primary schools. Research results, obtained by summarizing and analyzing the statements, indicate that the participants are very well informed on the types, effects, consequences and causes of drug abuse, but know little about laws and services they could contact for help. Apart from that, certain misconceptions regarding drug abuse are widespread in the population of the assessed students. Practical implications for planning educational programs of drug abuse prevention in primary school students were determined from the obtained research results with regard to the principle of prevention programs effectiveness.

Keywords

• drugs
• primary school
• prevention
• prevention program
• education