My Family-study: an early-onset substance abuse prevention program based on Intervention Mapping approach.

Background and Objectives: Based on different studies, substance use is one of the health problems in the Iranian society. The prevalence of substance use is on a growing trend; moreover, the age of the onset of substance use has declined to early adolescence and even lower. Regarding this, the present study aimed to develop a family-based early-onset substance use prevention program in children (My Family-Study) by using intervention mapping approach.
Materials and Methods: This study describes the research protocol during which the intervention mapping approach was used as a framework to develop My Family-Study. In this study, six steps of intervention mapping were completed. Interviews with experts and literature review fulfilled the need assessment. In the second step, the change objectives were rewritten based on the intersection of the performance objectives and the determinants associated in the matrices. After designing the program and planning the implementation of the intervention, the evaluation plan of the program was accomplished.
Results: The use of intervention mapping approach facilitated the development of a systematic as well as theory- and evidence-based program. Moreover, this approach was helpful in the determination of outcomes, performance and change objectives, determinants, theoretical methods, practical application, intervention, dissemination, and evaluation program.
Conclusions: The intervention mapping provided a systematic as well as theory- and evidence-based approach to develop a quality continuing health promotion program.