The rates of nonmedical use of prescription drugs among adolescents and young adults in the United States are alarmingly high. Researchers funded in part by NIDA examined whether several universal drug abuse preventive interventions for middle school-age youth could reduce their future nonmedical use of prescription drugs. The interventions, which were administered to both middle school-aged children and their families, were tested in two randomized, controlled studies conducted in the rural Midwest
 The first study tested two different family-based interventions, the Preparing for the Drug Free Years (PDFY) program and the Iowa Strengthening Families Program (ISFP), which focus on teaching families about risk and protective factors for substance use.
 The second study compared the school-based Life Skills Training (LST) intervention program with the Strengthening Family Program for Parents and Youth 10–14 (SFP), a revised version of the family-based ISFP, plus the school-based LST programs.
Both studies followed participants until the age of 21 and also included control groups of students that did not receive any of the interventions being tested. Beginning in the 9th or 10th grade, students were asked about prescription drug abuse.
 Results from both studies showed that teens and young adults who had received the interventions in middle school reported less prescription drug abuse compared with participants who had not received the interventions. The magnitude of the difference depended on the specific intervention received, with the ISFP (in study 1) and SFP programs (in study 2) producing significant decreases in rates of prescription drug abuse. Whether these results can be generalized to other populations (such as nonrural or international populations) and whether the effects of the interventions persist into emerging adulthood years will need to be examined in further studies.
Source: Spoth R, Trudeau L, Shin C, Redmond C. Long-term effects of universal preventive interventions on prescription drug misuse. Addiction. 2008;103(7):1160–1168