A Survey of a Canadian On-Line Substance Abuse Prevention Initiative for Adolescents and Young Adults

Abstract

Electronic Zoot is a Canadian youth-oriented, computer bulletin board system based in Edmonton. The system is designed to teach its users about the risks associated with substance use and abuse. More than 600 of Electronic Zoot's users were surveyed to obtain demographic data and information about attitudes. The majority of the users of the system were male. Most users were between 11 and 25 years of age and a disproportionately high number were from rural communities. It was found that peer support was a primary component of this telehealth service. Statistically significant age differences revealed that the system's younger users were more likely than its older users to be influenced by the drug education message of the bulletin board system. In addition, it was noted that on-line surveys are easy to conduct and greatly facilitate the collection of longitudinal telehealth data.

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