Substance use outcomes 5½ years past baseline for partnership-based, family-school preventive interventions

Abstract

This article reports adolescent substance use outcomes of universal family and school preventive interventions 5½ years past baseline. Participants were 1677 7th grade students from schools (N = 36) randomly assigned to the school-based Life Skills Training plus the Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14 (LST + SFP 10-14), LST-alone, or a control condition. Selfreports were collected at baseline, 6 months later following the interventions, then yearly through the 12th grade. Measures included initiation-alcohol, cigarette, marijuana, and drunkenness, along with a Substance Initiation Index (SII)-and measures of more serious use-frequency of alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use, drunkenness frequency, monthly poly-substance use, and advanced poly-substance use. Analyses ruled out differential attrition. For all substance initiation outcomes, one or both intervention groups showed significant, positive point-in-time differences at 12th grade and/or significant growth trajectory outcomes when compared with the control group. Although no main effects for the more serious substance use outcomes were observed, a higher-risk subsample demonstrated significant, positive 12th grade point-in-time and/or growth trajectory outcomes for one or both intervention groups on all measures. The observed pattern of results likely reflects a combination of predispositions of the higher-risk subsample, the timing of the interventions, and baseline differences between experimental conditions favoring the control group.

Adaptations in a Community-Based Family Intervention: Replication of Two Coding Schemes

“…Since 2000, Washington State University (WSU) Extension 1 faculty (in collaboration with state and community partners) have promoted the statewide dissemination of SFP 10-14, an internationally recognized evidence-based family skills training program for youth ages 10-14 and their parents (Spoth et al, 2008;Spoth, Redmond, & Lepper, 1999;Spoth, Reyes, Redmond, & Shin, 1999). The goals of SFP 10-14 are to reduce youth problem behaviors by enhancing parenting and youth coping skills.…”

“…Despite significant progress in demonstrating the efficacy of health behavior education programs (Botvin & Griffin, 2004;Catalano et al, 2012;Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011;Spoth, Randall, Trudeau, Shin, & Redmond, 2008), the gap between research, practice, and meaningful public health impact remains substantial (Glasgow, Lichtenstein, & Marcus, 2003;Rohrbach, Grana, Sussman, & Valente, 2006;Spoth et al, 2013;Wandersman et al, 2008). Some suggest that this gap occurs because when evidence-based programs (EBPs) are transported into the real world, they are modified to fit local contexts and implemented with less than optimal levels of fidelity (Cohen et al, 2008;Dusenbury, Brannigan, Hansen, Walsh, & Falco, 2005;, and several empirical studies show a positive association between fidelity (i.e., program delivery as designed) and participant outcomes (Breitenstein, Gross, Garvey, Hill, Fogg, & Resnick, 2010b;Byrnes, Miller, Aalborg, Plasencia, & Keagy, 2010;Durlak & DuPre, 2008;Hamre et al, 2010;Hill & Owens, 2013;Pettigrew, Graham, Miller-Day, Hecht, Krieger, & Shin, 2015).…”

The Prospective Association Between Sipping Alcohol by the Sixth Grade and Later Substance Use

“…Although raising the minimum legal drinking age from age 18 to 21 has led to reductions in drinking and alcohol-related traffic fatalities (DeJong & Blanchette, 2014;Subbaraman & Kerr, 2013), evidence for the success of other programs targeted at delaying age at initiation is less compelling (Spoth et al, 2008). That there is no precise, shared understanding of what is meant by drinking onset makes direct comparisons across research studies challenging (Rolando et al, 2012).…”

Identifying links between sexual violence and youth violence perpetration: New opportunities for sexual violence prevention.

“…LST has been found to have beneficial effects on shared risk factors for YV and SV, including substance abuse, delinquency/antisocial behavior, and general aggression. Several studies have found that youth who participated in LST had significantly lower rates of substance abuse (Botvin, Griffin, Diaz, & Ifill-Williams, 2001;Spoth, Randall, Trudeau, Shin, & Redmond, 2008), verbal and physical aggression, fighting, and delinquency (Botvin et al, 2006) than comparison youth. Similarly, Positive Action (Beets et al, 2008) is a school-based universal program that emphasizes concepts related to positive behaviors for youth.…”

“…These partnerships provide opportunities to leverage resources and expertise across states to conduct comprehensive prevention approaches in communities. Rigorous evaluations of PROSPER have demonstrated significant effects on alcohol and drug use, conduct problems, and family outcomes, including connectedness and discipline (Spoth et al, 2008).…”