BACKGROUND: General population surveys present a useful tool for getting information on drug use prevalence, but they often fail to reach a sufficient number of users, which is required to get detailed information on use patterns or other characteristics. Web surveys, especially when they use social networking sites, might present a complementary mechanism for getting a better picture of drug use by reaching hard-to-reach populations. AIM: The main objective of this study was to examine Facebook advertisements as a recruitment strategy in the “European Web Survey on Drugs: patterns of use”, a project organized by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. METHODS: Recruitment campaigns invited adults aged 18+ years who had consumed at least one drug (cannabis, MDMA/ ecstasy, amphetamines, or cocaine) in the past 12 months to complete an online survey. The advertisements were created in Facebook’s Advertisement program and were used in Croatia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. RESULTS: Among the eligible participants recruited via Facebook (N=5256), 68.1% were from Croatia, 24.4% from Switzerland, and 7.5% from the Netherlands. The Croatian and Swiss participants were younger and more likely to be males compared to the Dutch participants. Chi-square tests showed that there were significant differences in the frequency of drug use between the samples from the different countries for almost all drugs. CONCLUSION: The Facebook recruitment strategy was successful in reaching young adults, as well as recreational drug users, although the costs, campaign duration, available budget, and content of the ad images differed among the countries.

Although the Early Warning System on New Psychoactive Substances in the Republic of Croatia was established in 2007, the phenomenon of new psychoactive substances only recently began garnering attention. This surge in attention is largely due to reports from other EU countries on intoxications and deaths connected to these, as well as the increased availability of these substances in specialized shops (“smart shops”) and on the internet. This paper demonstrates the agenda-setting process in relation to the policy for combating new psychoactive substances abuse in Croatia by using the phase model or the policy-cycle model of policy-making process. The agenda-setting phase is characterized by a presentation of a specific problem as an important public policy issue; therefore, the aim of this paper is to discuss activities, circumstances and actors that are important for agenda setting of the policy for combating new psychoactive substances in Croatia.

Pojava novih psihoaktivnih tvari u Hrvatskoj počela je zaokupljati pažnju javnosti tek nedavno, iako je nacionalni Sustav ranog upozoravanja u slučaju pojave novih psihoaktivnih tvari ustrojen još 2007. godine. Prepoznavanju problema od strane javnosti pridonijela su izvješća o trovanjima i smrtnim slučajevima povezanim s konzumiranjem takvih tvari u državama članicama Europske unije, kao i njihova rastuća dostupnost u specijaliziranim trgovinama (tzv. smart shop) i na Internetu. U ovom radu prikazat će se utvrđivanje programa politike novih psihoaktivnih tvari u Hrvatskoj, pri čemu će se primijeniti fazni model procesa stvaranja javnih politika, odnosno, model ciklusa javnih politika. Utvrđivanje programa javnih politika predstavlja početnu fazu procesa, stoga je svrha rada raspraviti aktivnosti, okolnosti i aktere koji su važni za postavljanje politike suzbijanja zlouporabe novih psihoaktivnih tvari na program političkog odlučivanja.

The main objective in this study was to examine Facebook and Google advertisements as a recruitment strategy in the “European Web Survey on Drugs: patterns of use” project. The Facebook recruitment campaigns invited individuals who lived in Croatia, the Netherlands or Switzerland, who were over 18 years of age and who had consumed at least one drug (cannabis, MDMA / ecstasy, (meth)amphetamines or cocaine) in the past 12 months, to complete a web survey about their patterns of drug use. The Google campaign was focused on participants that lived in Croatia, who were at least 18 years old and had consumed one of the aforementioned drugs in the last year. All campaigns applied a cost per click model. Results showed that the Facebook campaign had the highest number of clicks on the advertisement in Croatia (HR: 14,791; SW: 4,292; NL: 707), as well as eligible participants (HR: 3,581; SW: 1,281; NL: 394), while the Netherlands had the lowest cost per participant (EUR 0.25). The Google campaign in Croatia resulted with 5,677 clicks. The average cost per click differed during the campaign (HRK 0.36-2.73), and a higher budget, did not result in a higher number of clicks. It can be concluded that Facebook and Google advertisements resulted in a broad reach with a reasonable budget, therefore these strategies present a useful tool for recruiting large numbers of participants in surveys on the sensitive topic of drug use.

Borderline personality disorder and substance use disorders are two forms of psychological problems that are often diagnosed within the same person. As those people sometimes remain highly stigmatized and largely neglected, and at the same time pose a major public health problem, we decided to focus on this co-morbidity by using developmental psychopathology perspective. The aim of the paper was to present this co-occurrence, explore some of the common risk and protective factors and offer an approach that could be used for preventing both disorders. Potential relatedness of concept of risk and protecting factors, attachment, developmental cascades and preventive intervention was explained by the sequential causal model.