Empowering Youth in High-Risk Areas: Assessing the Impact of a Psychospiritual Prevention Program on Drug Abuse Prevention

Abstract

Substance or drug abuse is one of the biggest threats to the nation. One of the main factors contributing to the failure of staying abstinent is the lack of social support from the community. The models of prevention programs are mostly adopted from the Western model, which seems to be unfit for the local context. Hence, there is a significant need to explore new strategies in which the protective and spiritual elements are practiced in the community in Malaysia against drug abuse. The emerging themes for Malaysians’ protective and spiritual factors are useful for conceptualizing and developing a psychospiritual prevention module for the community in Malaysia using the Sidek Module Development Model (2005). The objective of this research is to evaluate the influence of a psychospiritual prevention module on (1) spiritual awareness, (2) locus of control, (3) knowledge, and (4) self-assertiveness. To achieve this, participants were assigned to either an experimental or control group during both the initial assessment and follow-up evaluation. This study employed a quasi-experimental design involving two distinct youth cohorts, each consisting of 33 individuals in both the experimental and control groups. The experimental group participated in a psychoeducational intervention conducted in seven sessions by trained staff, whereas the control group received no intervention. The comparative analysis between the pre- and post-tests revealed a significant increase in the mean scores for spirituality (from 172.24 to 188.12 in the post-test and 191.79 in the follow-up test), locus of control (from 68.76 to 76.79 in the post-test and 87.52 in the follow-up test), knowledge (from 28.91 to 41.48 in the post-test and 72.09 in the follow-up test), and self-assertiveness (from 99.48 to 106.42 in the post-test and 119.42 in the follow-up test) in the experimental group. In contrast, the three variables examined did not exhibit noteworthy increases within the control group. The new evidence-based module can create synergy between government agencies and the community in drug prevention.