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How does active parental consent influence the findings of drug-use surveys in schools?

Version 2 2024-06-04, 11:09
Version 1 2017-05-17, 13:29
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-04, 11:09 authored by Vicki WhiteVicki White, DJ Hill, Y Effendi
This study examines the impact of passive and active parental consent procedures on the type of adolescents participating in a school-based survey examining substance use. Schools recruited from a random sample of metropolitan schools were assigned to passive or active parental consent condition. Results showed that participation rates in active consent schools were lower than in passive consent schools for junior students (60% vs. 80%) but not senior students. Although consent condition had limited impact on prevalence estimates among older students, among younger students estimates of cannabis use and ecstasy use were higher in the passive consent condition than the active consent condition. Active consent procedures introduce some degree of selection bias into studies of adolescents' substance use and may compromise the external validity of prevalence estimates produced, especially among younger students.

History

Journal

Evaluation review

Volume

28

Pagination

246-260

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

0193-841X

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2004, Sage Publications

Issue

3

Publisher

Sage