Prevalence and determinants of resistance to use drugs among adolescents who had an opportunity to use drugs.

Abstract

As drugs remain ubiquitous and their use increasingly viewed as socially normative, vulnerable population groups such as adolescents face continued and growing risk. A better understanding of the factors that discourage individuals from initiating drug use, particularly in enabling scenarios, is therefore needed. This study aims to identify individual, interpersonal and school-contextual factors associated with resistance to using drugs in the presence of a drug use opportunity among adolescents in Bogotá, Colombia. Data are analyzed from 724 school-attending adolescents (15.1 years, SD=1.3) who have had an opportunity to use drugs. Schools were selected in a multistage probability cluster sample. Random intercept multilevel logistic regression models were implemented to estimate the effect of individual, interpersonal and school-contextual level variables on the likelihood of resisting using drugs. Drug use resistance was observed in less than half (41.4%) of those students who experienced an opportunity to use drugs. Drug use resistance was strongly associated with having experienced a passive drug use opportunity (AOR = 3.1, 95% CI = 2.0, 4.9), the number of drugs offered (AOR = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.6, 0.8) and family factors such as not having a drug-using first-degree relative (AOR = 2.3, 95% CI=1.2, 4.3) and a high degree of parental supervision (AOR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.0, 3.2). A large proportion of students who experienced a drug-use opportunity did not initiate drug use despite living in a context of high drug availability and social disorganization. The findings highlight the need for effective family-based drug use prevention interventions within the Colombian context.