Dr Alexis-Garsee is a Chartered Psychologist, an Associate Professor in Health Psychology and co-director of the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. She takes a mixed method approach to examine topics in applied health psychology in order to promote health and wellbeing. Her research focuses on the evaluation of theory-based behaviour change public health interventions such as smoking, vaping, exercise; young people and substance use; the application of new technologies for behaviour change such as apps, vapes, digital technology; and the impact of chronic illnesses like Long COVID on the lives of sufferers and their families.

Abstract

Aims: School-based drug education has a wide reach, but there is a lack of consistency in the provision of drug education in UK schools and very little research on students’ views of school-based drug education programmes. This is important as understanding the needs of students may provide the context in which school-based drug education interventions can be delivered.

Methods: Students aged 13–15 years from 12 UK secondary schools participated in this study. Using a mixed method design, we examined students’ views of drug education and how it should be delivered, their knowledge, risk perceptions, and attitudes towards drug use.

Results: Regression analyses showed that students’ refusal skills and communication with parents/carers about drugs explained the largest percentage of the variance in students’ desire for drug education. Qualitative findings also showed that greater understanding of the effects of drugs, context, as well as creative delivery of drug education were important components of drug education for this age group.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of the adolescents’ voice in drug education programmes and the need to locate interventions within their local context. Communication with parent/carers and refusal skills explained most of the variance in students’ desire for drug education, but their community context was also important. Therefore, a multicomponent drug-education programme that takes a whole-school approach may be uniquely suited to this age group.