Alcohol Prevention and School Students

Abstract

The Drug Education in Victorian Schools program provided integrated education about licit and illicit drugs, employed a harm minimization approach that incorporated participatory, critical thinking and skill-based teaching methods, and engaged parental influence through home activities. A cluster-randomized, controlled trial of the program was conducted with a student cohort during Year 8 (13 years) and Year 9 (14 years). Twenty-one secondary schools in Victoria, Australia, were randomly allocated to the Drug Education in Victorian Schools program (14 schools, n = 1,163) or their usual drug education program (7 schools, n = 589). This study reports program effects for alcohol. There was a greater increase in the intervention students' knowledge about drugs, including alcohol; there was a greater increase in communication with parents about alcohol; they recalled receiving more alcohol education; their alcohol consumption increased less; and they experienced a lesser increase in alcohol-related harms. Among intervention group risky drinkers, consumption and harm increased less. There were no differences between study groups in attitudes toward alcohol or in the proportion of drinkers or risky drinkers. While the program did not stop students taking up drinking, it did reduce their consumption and harm.

The Relationship between Social Emotional Learning Competencies and Life Satisfaction in Adolescents: Mediating Role of Academic Resilience

“…Previous studies have found a relationship between a decrease in substance use and an increase in life satisfaction. Social-emotional learning competencies is also effective in reducing substance abuse (Midford et al 2014;2018) and suicidal ideation (Gravesteijn et al 2011). The fact that social-emotional learning competencies reduces substance abuse is consistent with the finding that social-emotional learning competencies has an effect on life satisfaction obtained as a result of this study.…”

Teaching methods for critical thinking in health education of children up to high school: A scoping review

“…Some educational interventions were described in more than one article. In such cases, the records were merged and assessed as one study [ 16 , 17 , 56 , 70 – 72 , 119 ]. The most common study design was cluster randomized (25 articles, 22%) and quasi-experimental (20 articles, 17%).…”

“…Finally, research conducted in Australia concerned such health topics as psychoactive substance use [ 70 – 72 , 81 ], lifestyle [ 16 , 17 ], as well as public [ 23 , 102 ] and mental health [ 23 ], while an educational intervention conducted in South America covered the topic of SRH [ 20 ].…”

Building Better Schools with Evidence-based Policy

“…Primary prevention programs provided by [INSERT name of school] will promote abstinence. They will also include, for older students, some harm minimization components such as practical knowledge and skills to enable young people to have a safety plan and to enable safer decisions regarding drug use (McBride et al, 2004;McKay et al, 2014;Midford et al, 2018;Midford et al, 2015;Newton et al, 2010;Vogl et al, 2009).…”