Recent research from the drug and alcohol Effectiveness Bank:
Parenting intervention has remarkable impact on teen drunkenness
In this initial developer-led trial in one county in Sweden, routine parent-school meetings encouraging commitment to take a strong stand against underage drinking had a remarkable impact on adolescent drunkenness.
Benefits fade after fine-tuning prevention to high risk personality traits Addressing the substance use promoting tendencies of the personality traits of London schoolchildren at particular risk of substance misuse led to persistently lower drink-related problems, but after a year drinking itself was not significantly affected.
Parent-child intervention prevents heavy drinking in Dutch teens In this Dutch study, promoting parental rule setting and classroom alcohol education together nearly halved the proportion of adolescents who later went to drink heavily. Rarely have such strong and sustained drinking prevention impacts been recorded from these types of interventions.
Preventing drinking and drug use among students in London This bulletin highlights three attempts to prevent substance use among London school or college students. The first two used the same system to adjust counselling to the personality of the student and had at least some short-term success, even when using school staff as counsellors. The third individualised the approach via motivational interviewing but without success.
UK trial of web-based alcohol prevention program for college students
Would the US tactic of telling college students how little the average student really drinks work with their hard-drinking British counterparts? This UK trial was not altogether convincing, but the US evidence is on balance positive.
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