The use of psychoactive substances among adolescents in their late teens: setting up a yearly survey

The ending of the French National Service having led to closing the selection centres, the yearly surveys upon the use of psychoactive substances carried out by the Military Health Department1 have ceased from 1996 onwards. 

The information system about drugs and drug addictions would then be deprived of an observation device centred on a most affected population (male, young individuals), more particularly on recent trends. To make up for this lack of information, the OFDT therefore undertook the setting-up of the Enquête sur la santé et les comportements lors de l'appel de préparation à la défense (ESCAPAD, Health and Behaviour Survey during the Roll Call of Preparation for Defence). 

The questionnaire covers the use of psychoactive substances, as well as the youth health and leisure behaviours. It is self-answered and anonymous. The ESCAPAD 2000 Survey was proffered to every youth attending the May 10th and May 13th sessions in Metropolitan France. Thanks to it, about 14,000 individual answers have been collected. 

The purpose of this crosswise survey, carried out on an important and representative sample of the young French, is to give accurate results on a narrow age bracket. It is part of a general project including a school survey, the ESPAD, carried out in March 1999, and a phone survey among 12-75 year-olds, the Baromètre Santé, conducted in late 1999. If these three surveys bring noteworthy similar trends into light, they nevertheless differ in their methods, purposes, and the populations they enfold, proscribing any deduction whatsoever from comparing one with the other. 

The ESCAPAD Survey, which appears here for the first time, will then be carried out again every year, in order to grasp the use evolutions among youngsters and young adults.