Personal and social skills training: cognitive-behavioral approaches to substance abuse prevention

Abstract

A total of nine evaluation studies have been conducted with four prevention models which focus on teaching generic personal and social skills. All of these approaches have produced demonstrable effects for one or more substance use behaviors, and the magnitude of these effects generally appears to be large. Although methodological problems may exist in some of these studies, the magnitude of the effects obtained and their consistency across studies provide strong support for the efficacy of these approaches. Finally, a major strength of the research conducted in this area is that all of these studies have assessed the impact of the prevention programs on presumed mediating variables, and have been able to demonstrate effects on a number of these variables consistent with the behavioral results. Thus, while these studies collectively provide evidence for the effectiveness of generic personal and social skills training substance abuse prevention models, only preliminary data are available concerning how and why these programs work.