<p>The study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review on life skills as a strategy for preventing alcohol and other drug use, as well as analysing the characteristics of intervention programmes administered to adolescents and young people.&nbsp; The search for articles was conducted between February and March 2021, selecting studies produced during the period from 2005 to 2021, with the descriptors life skills, adolescents and substance-related disorders, defined according to DeCS/MeSH, in Spanish, English and Portuguese. The databases PubMed, PsycNet, Scielo, Redalycs, Lilacs and Pepsic were used. The sample consisted of 14 qualitative and quantitative studies. The results show that life skills promote the autonomy of the subject in terms of health decisions, constituting protective factors for drug use during adolescence and young adulthood. In this way, they intervene to delay the onset of drug use and reduce the risk of problematic use; however, in groups with vulnerabilities in such skills and that started using early, the reduction of drug use is less effective than in groups with strengthened skills.</p>