PURPOSE: The purpose of Substance Use Prevention (SUP) project was to demonstrate whether the social influence strategies that were initially developed and found to be effective with American school students would be effective in preventing substance use among Armenian adolescents. SIGNIFICANCE: Despite the lack of statistical data, tobacco use is perceived to be widely prevalent among Armenian adolescents. While this behavior was shown to be preventable by properly designed school health education, nothing has been done in this direction in Armenia. METHODS: The SUP curriculum was implemented in selected classes of 7-9th grades of four schools in Yerevan, Armenia. The evaluation was conducted using a design formally known as "quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group". The evaluation instruments consisted of self-reported pre-, post- and follow-up questionnaires assessing students' substance-related knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviors; teachers' records on students' ability to demonstrate the specific skills; and teachers' and students' evaluation of the project. RESULTS: It was shown that short-term health education had statistically and practically significant positive impact on substance-related knowledge, attitude and skills of the target population. Comparison with the control group suggested that the positive impact could be attributed to the intervention. Positive impact on self-reported behaviors was not detected. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the teachers and students gave positive response to the project. Important lessons were learned showing the way the implementation/evaluation strategies could be further developed to achieve/detect positive behavior change. The SUP project was recommended as a model for developing a national school health education program.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant in this session will be able to: 1. Recognize the importance of introducing health programs in Armenian schools 2. Define the extent to which social influence strategies developed primarily in the USA were able to positively impact Armenian adolescents'substance-related knowledge, attitudes and skills 3. List three classees of limitations the SUP project develpment/implementation/evaluation were facing 4. Present the recommendations on how to further develop the implementation/evaluation strategies in order to achieve/detect participants' behavior change
Keywords: Adolescents, Prevention
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.