Cross sectional survey of psychotropic drug use among middle and high school students of São Paulo State

Abstract

Drug use is a major risk behavior for adolescent health. Despite the relevance of epidemiological studies for directing public policy, no studies represent the drug use of adolescents on the State of São Paulo as a whole. Given this gap, this project aims to assess the prevalence of use of drugs among students on the 15 macro-regions of the São Paulo state. The sample will be representative, clustered and stratified of the state schools and will comprise about 15000 students divided into 150 schools 450 classes from 6th grade (middle school) to 3rd grade (of high school). An anonymous self-report questionnaire proposed by WHO and adapted by CEBRID in 1987 will be collectively distribute in the classroom. The questionnaire contains questions about drug use, sociodemographic factors, social context and other risk behaviors. Analysis will consider patterns of drug use according to age, gender and type of school attended by the student (public andprivate) in each of 15 regions of the state of Sao Paulo. Factors associated with drug use (religiousness, sexuality, family relationships, socioeconomic class, among others) will be assessed through binary and multinomial logistic regressions. (AU)