Reducing the individual, institutional and societal harms from student drug use

Conference item

Drug use among higher education students can cause harm to the individual, their institution, and the wider society. Academic performance, physical and mental health, institutional reputation, crime and unemployment can all be impacted by student drug use. Tackling this is a challenge, and is often compounded by limited student health and counselling capacity and the student’s reluctance or unwillingness to seek support. Digital brief interventions have shown promise in reducing harm from substance use, and provide an opportunity to meet students where they are, delivering always-on, confidential support and intervention. However, limited interventions for drug use are available for students, and many struggle with engagement and retention. Our team have developed a novel brief intervention, using best practices in digital intervention development, and behavioural change to overcome some of these challenges. We describe the development of our intervention and discuss how implementation could result in tangible benefits to the individual, institution, and society.

Authors: Dick, S; Dillon, B; Vasiliou, VS; Davoren, MP; Dockray, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València
• Host title: 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21)
• Pages: 465-472
• Series: International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd)
• Publication date: 2021-06-22
• Event title: Seventh International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAD 21)
• Event location: Virtual event
• Event website: https://riunet.upv.es/collections/1a031344-4105-4238-8a56-f44172ac1540
• Event start date: 2021-06-22
• Event end date: 2021-06-23
• DOI: 10.4995/head21.2021.13060
• EISSN: 2603-5871
• Language: English
• Keywords: drug use; digital intervention; harm reduction; behaviour change