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Community Readiness for Prevention of Substance Abuse and Other Risk Behaviors in Istria County in Croatia

Scientific project “Communities that care as a model of prevention of behavioral disorders in Croatia” has arisen as a result of long- standing expert and scientific investment in the field of behavioral disorders prevention in Istrian County in Croatia. Project was created at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia in association with Istria County and the Department of Health and Social Care. Since the beginning of project implementation in 2002, project initiatives and activities were focused on prevention of drug, alcohol and tobacco use and other risk behaviors of children and youth. Prevention program effectiveness is greatly influenced by the acceptance levels among community stakeholders. The aim of this poster is to present readiness for prevention of substance abuse and other risk behaviors in three local communities in Istria County – Poreč, Pula and Labin involved into a project. Communities’ prevention readiness was assessed through focus groups organized in each of the three communities in 2009 and directed to the local community stakeholders. Community Readiness Scale created by Oetting et al. (1995) was used as a base for assessing community prevention readiness. Stakeholders of each community were asked to give their impressions and attitudes about the following Scale dimensions: (1) prevention programming, (2) knowledge about prevention programs, (3) leadership and community involvement, (4) knowledge about the problem and (5) funding for prevention. Stakeholders’ answers were analyzed by four independent observers and categorized according to the nine anchor statements that define nine levels of community readiness for prevention. Our goal was to compare the community readiness for the prevention of the substance abuse and other risk behaviors of three local communities with the hypothesis that communities differ in the levels of prevention readiness. Altogether, 20 participants were involved in the assessment. 19 of them were females and 1 was male. Analysis of the answers showed that the highest level of prevention readiness is present in Poreč while the lowest is in Pula. According to the results, Poreč is in the eight stage of prevention readiness - confirmation/expansion stage, Labin in the sixth - initiation stage while Pula is in forth - preplanning stage. Stakeholders from Poreč community were involved into a project longer then stakeholders form other assessed communities which could have an affect on their high level of prevention readiness. The lowest levels of prevention readiness for all three communities were found on the dimension of knowledge about the problem of substance abuse and other risk behaviors. Further analysis will be presented in the poster.

communities that care; readiness; prevention; substance abuse

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