Preventing drug use in adolescence and improving school climate from an ecological approach

Adapting the drug prevention programs to the current situation requires its insertion in an ecological school perspective, to broaden its objectives and improve the teenager school engagement, one of the main conditions of protection. Thus, the programs may be more responsive to the needs and priorities of schools. The objective of this research is to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the program Prevenir en Madrid developed from this perspective. The program implementation involves the participation of all teachers who work with adolescents enrolled in compulsory secondary school. It focused on objectives related to prevention of drug use and school violence, as well as improving the school climate. The research design was a non-equivalent control group design with before and after measures, and 167 participants with a mean age of fifteen years. The program was effective in improving school climate (increasing the cooperation among peers and trust in teachers as authority), preventing violence (decreasing its justification as a way to resolve conflicts as well as sexism and violence against women justification), and in preventing drug use (decreasing the tobacco use, positive attitudes towards consumption, and risk seeking). The results show that it is possible to achieve simultaneously school goals and prevent drug use. The effects detected in the school mesosystem and their possible relation to changes in the macrosystem supporting the ecological perspective adopted more favourable to the involvement of schools and maintenance of programs than the approaches focused on class groups.