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Dr. Rachna Bhargava

Substance Use in School Students in India

Biography

 

Dr. Rachna Bhargava is an Additional Professor of Clinical Psychology at the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. Since obtaining her doctoral degree, Dr. Bhargava has worked in positions involving clinical, research, teaching and administrative responsibilities in the departments of Psychiatry at Government Medical College and Hospital (in Chandigarh), Psychology in Delhi University and now Psychiatry and NDDTC at AIIMS. She has been engaged in earlier collaborative work around the WHO Quality of Life (WHOQOL) and has co-written grant applications, as well as received competitive grants for several projects.

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Recently, Dr. Bhargava was involved in a nation-wide survey on children with substance use, developed a Brief Intervention module to be used in school settings for children with substance use disorders, and was engaged in research to build capacity for counseling services. As a GMH Scholar, Dr. Bhargava was involved in examining behavioral indicators in children and adolescents for Intellectual Disability Disorder in the ICD-11.

Abstract

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India has a huge adolescent population, 6th highest among all countries. However, this population group is also highly vulnerable. One of the vulnerability is to addictive substance misuse. Multiple recent nationwide surveys indicate that the problem of substance use is present in the sizeable proportion of the adolescent population across settings. Despite this rapidly growing challenge, the prevention and treatment services for adolescent substance use is not in keeping with the size of the problem. Since, substance use in adolescents is a `hidden handicap’, it necessitates the development of effective preventive strategies within our societal constraints. School provides an ideal platform for prevention,  identification of high risk students and early intervention. One of the key challenge to this is the lack of trained manpower across settings at all levels. The presentation would be aimed towards sharing experiences of identification of substance use in school and development of preventive and intervention steps towards dealing with substance use in school setting by our centre: a recognized national centre for providing services and training.

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