Access to information in school and the use of psychoactive substances in Brazilian students – A multilevel study

INTRODUCTION: Use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs can be considered a global health problem, which typically begins in adolescence. Unsupervised access to information may arouse the adolescent's interest and predispose the use of drugs. METHODOLOGY: This is a cross-sectional study using data from National School-based Health Survey (PeNSE, 2012), with sample of 109,104 Brazilian students in 42.717 schools. Outcomes were: self-reported use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs in the past 30 days. Main exposures were contextual and included: library and media resources availability, computer room and internet available at school. Data analysis included multilevel logistic regression. RESULTS: Prevalence of alcohol use was 25.2% (IC95% 24.7–25.6), tobacco use was 5.3% (IC95% 5.1–5.5) and use of other drugs was 2.6% (IC95% 2.5–2.7). Multilevel analysis showed that recent use of alcohol and tobacco was associated to the presence of computer room and internet, while the use of other drugs presented an association with all media. CONCLUSION: Results indicate that supervision in access to information and communication resources may play a role on the prevention of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs use by students.