Efficacy of coping skills counselling programme on attitudes towards substance abuse among secondary school students in Jalingo, Taraba state, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the efficacy of coping skills counselling programme on attitudes towards substance abuse  among secondary school students in Jalingo, Nigeria. The design was pre/post-testquasi-experimental design.
Multistage sampling technique was used to select 186 students based on pre-test administration. The Instrument titled Students Attitudes towards Substance Abuse Questionnaire (SATSAQ) was constructed by researchers. The pre-test result revealed that students had positive attitudes towards substance abuse before intervention. After  intervention, it was discovered that coping skills counselling programme had significant effects on students' attitudes towards substance abuse. Furthermore, the effects of coping skills counselling programme on students' attitudes towards substance abuse did not differ due students' residence (boarding vs. day).Based on these findings, it was recommended that counsellors should adopt coping skills counselling programme to train students in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions because those who were exposed to the treatment reduced their positive attitudes towards substance abuse.

Keywords: Coping Skills, Attitudes, Day/Boarding Students, Substance Abuse