Teachers and Student's Perspectives of the Contents of an Addiction-Prevention Curriculum

To design appropriate content for an addiction-prevention curriculum from the viewpoint of teachers and students. In this survey 370 male and female students and 210 teachers were selected from Hamedan’s high schools through clustered randomized sampling. Eventually, 363 students and 200 teachers participated in the study. Two researcher-made questionnaires were used for data collection. Data were analyzed with Chi-square, Friedman and independent T tests. The highest level of agreement reached on the content was on these skills, in order of importance: the ability to say ‘no’ to others’ unreasonable demands, awareness of how friends can influence the desire to start or avoid addiction, and the ability to make decisions and interact with others. There was no significant difference among the three factors of causes, harms and prevention and they were all reported to be of equal importance. However, having compared the means, significant differences were found between the two groups of teachers and students and also between males and females. Teachers and students believed that the inclusion of drug education in high school textbooks is important, especially regarding the topics agreed.