CAPACIDAD PREDICTIVA DE LA TEORÍA DE LA CONDUCTA PLANIFICADA EN LA INTENCIÓN Y USO DE DROGAS ILÍCITAS ENTRE ESTUDIANTES MEXICANOS.

The need of cost-effective drug abuse prevention programs has derived in a growing interest to develop scientific based alternatives. On this context, this study forms part of a project for the design and evaluation of a theoretical and empirically sustained intervention for illicit drug abuse prevention among Mexican junior high school students. Starting with the revision and assessment of different theoretical models that could be adapted to the conditions of the institutional context wherein the intervention will be developed, the Azjen and Fishbein's Theory of Planned Behavior was chosen. This theory includes proximal cognitive and attitude factors directly related to the initiation of drug use. In accordance with it, the experimental use of substances is a result of the intention of consuming them, which, in turn, depends on three elements: a) the attitude toward the drug use, b) the normative beliefs on this matter (subjective norm) and c) the perceived behavioral control regarding drug use or, in turn, confronting social pressure. In a first instance, several items were developed adapting the constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior to the target population's characteristics. On this base, the reliability and validity of a self-applied questionnaire for the measurement of the variables of the model was proved. In this work are reported the findings of the evaluation of Theory of Planned Behavior's potential to predict both behavioral intention of using illicit drugs and consumption of substances among Mexican high school students, in order to set a precedent to apply the model later on in the design and evaluation of a preventive intervention directed to such population. Method The study was carried on with an ex post facto, correlational design, and with a non-probabilistic sample of 1,019 subjects. Sample. The sample size was estimated considering the possibility of selecting a subsample of drug users and comparison subjects for a post-stratified analysis, assuring a statistical power of 80% and adequate sensibility and stability. Therefore, this work includes the performed analyses with a sample of 75 drug users and 75 non users, paired by gender, age, school grade and occupation. Instrument. The instrument was a self-applied questionnaire specially developed for the study, according to information obtained in previous focal groups interviews with high school students. The questionnaire showed a global realiability of 0.9154 and between 0.62 and 0.94 in each one of its scales, which included: behavioral beliefs (0.9121), attributed value to behavioral beliefs (0.7964), normative beliefs (0.6480), subject's disposition to adjust to normative expectations (0.8564), descriptive norm (0.6254), drug use opportunities (0.8129) and perceived behavioral control coping with such opportunity situations (0.9442). A factorial analysis of principal components yielded 16 factors of at least three items each, with factorial weights higher than 0.4, and closely attached to Theory of Planned Behavior's variables, with an explained variance of 59%. Analysis. Previous to data analysis, normality tests (Kolmogorov-Smirnov) were performed, indicating the necessity to apply nonparametric tests of differences and to transform the data to be adapted to the requirements of later parametric analyses. A correlation analysis was carried out to prove the association between behavioral intention and drug use, as well as between the different components of the Theory of Planned Behavior. Finally, linear and logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the explicative potential of the model and the predictive weight of each variable on the model with regard to the behavioral intention and the consumption of drugs.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]