Objective: To evaluate the relation between the consumption of alcohol and other drugs and school absenteeism in high school students of public schools in the 30 days prior to data collection.
Method: Cross-sectional study of quantitative character conducted from May to September 2017, with 282 high school students of public schools of Mossoró-RN. We used a closed questionnaire with questions about drug consumption as our instrument of analysis. We performed hierarchical binary logistic regression by using the SPSS 20.0.
Results: In bivariate analysis, the relation between absenteeism and drug consumption patterns proved to be significant to those who engage in heavy episodic drinking of alcohol and in the use of tobacco, inhalants and marijuana. The adjusted regression model only included the variables tobacco and heavy episodic drinking of alcohol.
Conclusion: The hierarchical binary logistic regression analysis corroborated with absenteeism outcomes, explaining it in 12.3% of cases.