The Canadian Underage Substance Use Prevention Trial

Summary

Despite having made some strides with respect to reducing adolescent drinking rates, illicit substance use and substance use disorders (SUDs) remain significantly above national targets for health promotion and disease prevention in Canada and the United States. Now, more than ever, there is a pressing need for effective substance abuse prevention in Canada, particularly for those most at risk of developing substance use problems including prescription drug misuse. Clearly, new approaches to prevention (with lower numbers needed to treat) are needed and which translate new research on addiction vulnerability to personalised prevention and early intervention. The PreVenture Program involves brief cognitive-behavioural interventions targeting personality traits from a neurocognitive perspective. While the personality-targeted approach has been shown to be effective in reducing most substance use behaviors, it has yet to be evaluated for its impact on uptake of prescription drug misuse in adolescents. The Canadian Underage Substance use Prevention (CUSP) Trial aims to evaluate the long-term effects of a personality-targeted school-based prevention program on delaying the onset of drug and alcohol use in adolescence over three years across Canada. This is a hybrid effectiveness \[E\] and implementation-facilitation \[IF\] trial on delaying the onset of drug and alcohol use in adolescence. In the \[E\] part, the effects of a personalized prevention program will be tested against usual school-based prevention curricula. PreVenture is delivered through a TtT implementation model with or without \[IF\], e.g. with ongoing supervision and web-based support. The \[IF\] package is designed to support long-term sustainability of PreVenture after a community accesses PreVenture training.

Conditions

• Substance Use Disorders
• Adolescent Behavior
• Adolescent Development

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

PreVenture Training (PTtT)

PreVenture TtT model will involve identifying local expert trainers to be trained to train school-based professionals on the PreVenture program. Steps include: 1. PreVenture Facilitator certification: Trainers participate in training workshops and deliver the program to eligible youth in Cohort 1 and are rated on quality of implementation using the PIFA. 2. Reliable use of the PIFA: Each trainer demonstrates convergence with the Montreal Team's ratings on a set of previously-recorded PreVenture sessions. 3. PreVenture Training Workshop Certification: Trainers participate in a one-day TtT workshop to review the main aims and exercises of PreVenture Training. Trainers then record mock TtT sessions in which key components of the PreVenture Training Workshop are delivered to an audience of 4-10 individuals (e.g., class of graduate students). These sessions are rated by the Montreal Team the PreVenture Implementation Fidelity and Adherence-Trainer Scale (PIFA-T).

BEHAVIORAL

PreVenture Training+Implementation Facilitation

PreVenture TtT model + Implementation Facilitation Package: 1. Youth advisors identified the role of older youth to support program implementation. Youth will help promote PreVenture to students and families and help Facilitators optimize attendance at sessions. 2. Trainer-led coaching sessions will focus on enhancing program fidelity and acceptability by Facilitators. 'Best practice' supervision elements from efficacy trials will be integrated. Fidelity and symptom monitoring will be conducted in real-time during program implementation. 3. Performance metrics have been developed based on youth qualitative feedback to PreVenture sessions in previous trials. Analysis indicates key responses that are predictive of students most likely to benefit from PreVenture on 12-month substance use outcomes and indicates the extent to which Facilitator's interventions are leaving students with impressions consistent with positive long-term outcomes.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of British Columbia

  collaborator OTHER

• Center for Addiction and Mental Health

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Dalhousie University

  collaborator OTHER

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• St. Justine's Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Patricia Conrod, PhD · St. Justine's Hospital

• Jürgen Rehm, PhD · CAMH

• Hayley Hamilton, PhD · CAMH

• Marvin Krank, PhD · University of British Columbia

• Sherry Stewart, PhD · Dalhousie University

• Chris Richardson, PhD · University of British Columbia

• David Smith, PhD · Interior Health BC

• Joanna Henderson, PhD · CAMH

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-12-01

Primary Completion

2026-04-30

Completion

2026-04-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations