Validation of the European drug addiction prevention trial questionnaire for substance use screening and to assess risk and protective factors among early adolescents in Chile 2018

Substance use is highly prevalent among Chilean adolescents. There are no validated instruments to assess risk and protective factors for this population in Chile, which is essential for evaluating future prevention interventions. We are conducting a large study to assess the effectiveness of the culturally adapted Unplugged program in Chile (known as “Yo Sé Lo Que Quiero” ["I Know What I Want"]). In order to have robust results coming from this evaluation, we need to have a validated instrument, so we decided to use the same questionnaire as in Europe and Brazil, to be able to do future comparisons between countries. Therefore, the aims of this study were: (1) culturally adapt the EU-Dap questionnaire among early adolescents in Chile; (2) assess the validity of internal factor structure of the subscales contained in the questionnaire evaluating risk and protective factors; (3) assess the reliability of these subscales and (4) assess possible relationships between all risk and protective factors measured by the questionnaire and substance use.