The Evaluation of the Adapted Lifeskills Training in Italy

Introduction: The LifeSkills Training (LST) is a research-validated substance abuse prevention program proven to reduce the risks of alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, and violence and it is recognized as a model or exemplary program by an array of government and international agencies, including NIDA. The Lombardy Region, a region of the north of Italy, has adopted the LST as one of the evidence-based programs for the addiction prevention in order to improve the quality of the interventions delivered. The program has been culturally adapted in collaboration with the author of the program and a project was developed to assist the implementation of the activities, to monitor the quality of the intervention and to evaluate it. At the moment 180 middle schools, 1500 teachers and about 30000 students of 11-12 years old are involved.  The poster will present some results of the efficacy evaluation. Data refers to the first year of the project.

Methods: A randomized sample stratified according to geographical area of the schools which have implemented the LST and a control group of schools with similar characteristics have been involved. A pre (before the training) and post (at the end of the year) test has been administered to 2364 students of 55 schools (1349 LST and 1015 control group). The survey focused on drug use behaviours, normative belief about drug use, well-being and on personal, social and drug refusal skills. Multilevel-model analyses were applied to the index outcomes to verify the differences between LST and control group in the post test. Pre test measures, gender, age and school were included as covariate at the individual and cluster level in the model.

Results: Data showed that the LST group had smoked less than the control group (LST 3.9%, Control 5.8%; p<.01) in the post test. Moreover, after the implementation of the first level of the program students reported less levels of distress (LST 3.52, Control 3.63; p<.05) and lower risk taking (LST 2.66, Control 2.81; p<.01). Students of the LST group also increased some of their skills, as anxiety coping (LST 2.98, Control 2.77; p<.001) and assertiveness (LST 4.17, Control 4.05; p<.01). Moreover, students’ normative belief changed: the LST group thought that less adults smoke (LST 3.09, Control 3.51; p<.001) or drink (LST 3.23, Control 3.49; p<.001) compared with the control group.

Conclusions: Data will be discussed according to the implementation problems. The results of the study demonstrate the efficacy of the Italian adaptation of the LST. Moreover, these results have been used in order to improve the quality of the implementation discussing the effects and the problems faced with health professionals and teachers. Follow-up data of the second level of the program have just been collected.