Ungdomsinriktad alkohol- och drogprevention : förutsättningar, evidens och legitimitet

The aim of this thesis is to elucidate different aspects of Swedish adolescents’ use of alcohol and drugs and how society deals with problems related to their use. The subject has been analyzed in four studies. The first study was based on focus-group interviews with adolescents and aimed at elucidating the meaning of alcohol and intoxication for adolescents. The participants’ discussions contained two levels - one superficial (an ideal presentation of themselves) and one deep (which mediated cultural ideas of how to think and act). This is interpreted as a way to express the maturity process they are going through, at the same time as it symbolizes difficulties to unite external norms and values with their own need for devotion. The second study was based on project applications, evaluations and economy accounts for preventive work from 150 projects conducted by non-profit organizations. The results show that type of organizations and the methods used were based on tradition rather than on efficiency. These results are discussed in relation to growing demands for evidence based practice in the field of prevention. The third and the fourth study are based on the ADAD-interview (Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis). In the third study, comparisons of different judgements concerning the extent of drug abuse among adolescents in institutional care, were made and results show large differences between the different judgements, concerning both occurrence and extent of abuse. In the fourth study, the significance of ADAD was discussed in relation to matching drug abusing adolescents to treatment institutions. The results show that only a limited number of institutions specializes on drug abusing adolescents and that a majority of the adolescents institutionalized for drug problems never visit an institution specialized on drug abuse treatment