Effectiveness of Mobile Phone Test Messaging (SMS) on Substance Abuse Related Knowledge, Dicisional Balance and Percived Risk Among High School Students of Qazvin city, Iran

Background: Drug abuse among Iranian youth is a serious problem and is getting worse. At present, not only the number of drug use in adolescents has increased, even worse is also the age of initiation into drug use becoming lower and lower. Numerous studies had well documented the effect of prevention approaches that targeted social influences, divergence communication methods and the more comprehensive informing strategy. Furthermore, interventions that use common acceptable media may have significant effects on substance use in adolescences. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of school based drug abuse prevention program using mobile phone test messaging (SMS) on knowledge, dicisional balance and percived risk among high school students of Qazvin province, Iran. Materials/Patients and Methods: A total of 380 students from 8 high schools in Qazvin, were assigned randomly to intervention and control groups. The intervention group received educational package including 80 educational messages to raise awareness, health social consequences of substance use, drug abuse Cons Pros, positive attitude and motivation towards drugs resistance skills and social prospective. The final impacts was compared by measuring the Knowledge, decisional balances and perceived risk elements prior to and three-month after the SMS package delivery. Students were completed a self-administered questionnaire included demographic items, 14 item knowledge scale, decisional balance scale (Pros 14 items+ Cons 12-items) and 10 items perceived risk questionnaire associated with the initiation of drug use and resistance skills. Chi-square, T-test and One way ANOVA tests was applied to data analysis via SPSS 22.0. Results: Three months after the intervention, there were significant improvement in knowledge (P 0.001), Pros (P 0.001) and perceived risks (P 0.001) in intervention group. Also, significant decrease was found in Cons (P 0.05). Conclusion: It was concluded that the SMS based intervention, which significantly increased the knowledge, decisional balance and perceived risk of drugs was effective in the school based drug abuse prevention program in a sample of school students in Qazvin, Iran.