Government Social Research
15 May 2006: National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) publish Review of grey literature on drug prevention among young people."The aim of this review is to complement the evidence base built by mainstream literature for drug prevention among young people by systematically reviewing those drug prevention materials that do not traditionally find their way into systematic reviews, namely grey literature." (Aims and objectives). These materials were mostly published in the UK, although high-quality international studies were also considered if relevant.
There are three research areas for this study:
• highlight which interventions in the grey literature have the potential
to prevent drug use and/or reduce drugrelated harm among young people aged
7-25
• identify consistent findings/advice for effective good practice
for young people aged 7-25 years both among the general population and for
vulnerable groups
• identify gaps and inconsistencies in the evidence base and provide
a direction for future research commissioning.
A total of 290 documents were independently appraised by two reviewers according
to specially developed quality criteria. Of these, 26 were considered to
be of sufficient quality to be included in the review, 136 were judged to
provide suitable contextual material, and 128 were rejected outright.
The full article can be viewed on the NICE website.