Introduction: Adolescents adopt behaviours that can lead to a variety of health risks, including the use of psychoactive substances. The abuse of psychoactive substances affects the short-term and long-term physical, mental and social health of the individual and his surroundings, and therefore represents a major public health problem. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to identify the most common forms of substance abuse in adolescence, to study the importance and impact of health promotion on the effectiveness of preventing and reducing substance abuse in adolescents and to explore existing and potential opportunities for nursing in treating adolescents with substance abuse. Methods: A descriptive method of work was used with a review of domestic and foreign professional and scientific literature published between 2011 and 2021. The literature search was performed in the Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, MEDLINE databases and the COBIB.SI bibliographic-catalog database. We included 13 articles in the analysis. Results: The most common forms of substance abuse in adolescence are alcohol or cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, amphetamine. Behavioral, psychosocial and socio-environmental factors related to the adolescent, family, peers and school have the greatest influence on the prevention and reduction of psychoactive substances in adolescence. Of the greatest importance of health promotion on the effectiveness of the prevention and reduction of psychoactive substances in adolescence are promotional programs that highlight resilience factors, including positive mental health. Existing job opportunities for nurses in treating adolescents with substance abuse are mostly focused on health education rather than health promotion strategies. Potential opportunities for a nurse to work are shown by involving professionals such as artists and others with whom she could work to improve adolescent health, by involving adolescents from more vulnerable groups in health promotion programs, by using screening tools and social media. Discussion and conclusion: Promotional programs should be process-planned and evaluated to assess the effectiveness of preventing and reducing substance abuse. Positive aspects of mental health are the greatest shield of adolescents against the abuse of psychoactive substances, so it is necessary to develop, implement and evaluate promotional programs that strengthen positive development, socio-emotional skills and personality traits. For the successful implementation of promotional programs, nurses must know the competencies in the field of health promotion and be trained in accordance with them for its comprehensive implementation in the clinical environment.
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