%0 artículo original %A Marín Madrigal, Carlos %E Calderón Barboza, José %D 2017 %G spa %T Prevalence of psychoactive substance use and mental illness in adolescents %U https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/enfermeria/article/view/31635 %X The objective of this paper is to present the results of secondary research on the prevalence of psychoactive substance use (PSA) in the adolescent population with mental illness compared to adolescents who do not suffer from mental illness. A question was formulated according to the acronym "PICO" (patients, intervention, comparison, results); Subsequently, information was sought in different databases suggested in the Clinical Practice Based on Evidence course, taught by the Collaboration Program for Nursing Research Based on the Evidence of Costa Rica (CIEBE-CR). For the search of information, a review of scientific articles was carried out in Medline Plus, PudMed and EBSCO Host, in order to recover the greatest amount of information. After establishing the inclusion and exclusion criteria and performing a critical analysis, four documents that answered the question posed were selected. It was detected 58 documents related to the topic of which only four met quality criteria established by the Spanish Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASPe) to answer the clinical question. It is evidenced how, in childhood, psychopathology is increasingly recognized as a risk factor in the use of psychoactive substances. It is concluded that adolescents with mental pathology have a higher prevalence of the use of psychoactive substances in comparison with adolescents who do not suffer from mental illness.