Under the leadership of CTBH Director Dr. Marsch, CTBH is partnering on a new NIDA-funded project to develop and evaluate a mobile-friendly, web-based program designed to prevent abuse of prescription opioids among adolescents.
Recreational use of prescription opioids among adolescents is a significant and growing public health concern and has been referred to as an emerging epidemic in the U.S. Although a number of science-based, interactive, drug-abuse prevention programs focus on preventing use of non-prescription drugs among youth, to our knowledge, no science-based, interactive program focused on the prevention of prescription opioid abuse among youth exists. Given that adolescents’ views about the recreational use of prescription opioids differ in systematic ways from use of illegal, non-prescription drugs, developing an effective prevention program for youth targeted specifically at prescription opioid abuse is critical.
In this project, we are developing an interactive, web-based program for youth ages 11-14 focused on the prevention of prescription opioid abuse. This program will be grounded in a scientific understanding of risk factors for prescription opioid abuse among youth, employ informational technologies which are effective in promoting relevant knowledge and skills, and present program content using strategies which have been shown to be highly appealing to adolescents. Once development is completed, we will conduct a randomized, controlled trial with youth (ages 11-14 years) to evaluate the effectiveness of the web-based prevention intervention in increasing knowledge about key issues relevant to prescription opioid abuse among youth, skills acquisition relevant to preventing their misuse, negative attitudes about prescription opioid misuse, and perceived risk associated with their misuse. We will also assess the program’s effectiveness in reducing intentions to misuse prescription opioids as well as actual rates of such use. If effective, this scalable prevention program could enable widespread reach to youth in tackling the urgent public health issues of opioid misuse among adolescents.