The purpose of this study was to explore Grade 11 students perceptions of programs related to the prevention of alcohol use in four Saskatchewan high schools through an analysis of data elicited from student questionnaires and focus groups. Utilizing a case study design, information regarding current prevention policies in the schools was obtained by interviewing school principals. Interviews were then conducted with teachers and counsellors to determine the context in which the students were learning and included collecting data about the programs that were being delivered. In the final phase, 452 student questionnaires were administered and four focus groups were undertaken to explore students perceptions of alcohol prevention programs.<p> It was found that formal and informal school programs to prevent alcohol use were influenced by a number of factors. Time was an essential factor in allowing information to be conveyed to students. Although the topic of alcohol prevention was included within the health curriculum, there was limited time allotted to present this information in an effective manner. In fact, senior high school students did not receive any formal health education. With regard to alcohol prevention, the students identified that practicing resistance skills, the delivery of developmentally appropriate accurate information, and personal stories would contribute to their engagement in prevention programs and improve program efficacy. Methods of program delivery including peer interaction should be considered at all levels including the Grade 9 level when a large proportion of students reported that they started using alcohol. For the students in this study, the location and methods for student referrals to support services should be more transparent and accessible.<p> The findings of this study generated several implications for practice, policy, and research. First, systematic monitoring of students alcohol use would be useful in informing policy and program development. In adjunct to programs, teacher professional development should be implemented and informed by evidence-based practice to ensure consistency in the program goals and objectives. To support a comprehensive program with clear and consistent messages, policy needs to include the educative approach, professional development, strategies for student infractions, referral processes, parental information and guidelines, and evaluative measures. Implications for research underline the need for further exploration of students perceptions of zero tolerance policy, the nature of engaging prevention-related content, and efficacy of methods of information delivery to students on the risk continuum. Questions concerning how to actively involve parents at the school level need to be pursued.

The purpose of this study was to explore Grade 11 students perceptions of programs related to the prevention of alcohol use in four Saskatchewan high schools through an analysis of data elicited from student questionnaires and focus groups. Utilizing a case study design, information regarding current prevention policies in the schools was obtained by interviewing school principals. Interviews were then conducted with teachers and counsellors to determine the context in which the students were learning and included collecting data about the programs that were being delivered. In the final phase, 452 student questionnaires were administered and four focus groups were undertaken to explore students perceptions of alcohol prevention programs.<p> It was found that formal and informal school programs to prevent alcohol use were influenced by a number of factors. Time was an essential factor in allowing information to be conveyed to students. Although the topic of alcohol prevention was included within the health curriculum, there was limited time allotted to present this information in an effective manner. In fact, senior high school students did not receive any formal health education. With regard to alcohol prevention, the students identified that practicing resistance skills, the delivery of developmentally appropriate accurate information, and personal stories would contribute to their engagement in prevention programs and improve program efficacy. Methods of program delivery including peer interaction should be considered at all levels including the Grade 9 level when a large proportion of students reported that they started using alcohol. For the students in this study, the location and methods for student referrals to support services should be more transparent and accessible.<p> The findings of this study generated several implications for practice, policy, and research. First, systematic monitoring of students alcohol use would be useful in informing policy and program development. In adjunct to programs, teacher professional development should be implemented and informed by evidence-based practice to ensure consistency in the program goals and objectives. To support a comprehensive program with clear and consistent messages, policy needs to include the educative approach, professional development, strategies for student infractions, referral processes, parental information and guidelines, and evaluative measures. Implications for research underline the need for further exploration of students perceptions of zero tolerance policy, the nature of engaging prevention-related content, and efficacy of methods of information delivery to students on the risk continuum. Questions concerning how to actively involve parents at the school level need to be pursued.

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This study aims at exploring the intervention strategies directed to reduce alcohol drinking in Hogskolan in Gavle. Although many students consume alcohol in different settings such as parties and gathering, few of them can understand the whole picture of the school’s intervention strategies. As shown by the research, the social workers in health center attempt to form a collective relationship with students and use the open-ended questions when conducting the counseling. Meanwhile, the employees who are responsible for school bar not only try to create a safer environment based on Responsible Alcohol Drinking but also apply prevention strategies including a high alcohol price and a long waiting line. According to the overall situation in the community, a meeting has been organized among different sectors regarding health center, student union, and municipalities. The topics of the meetings are not only about the current situation in this region but also about the cooperative strategies of each sector. To take a closer look at the school’s alcohol methods, we interviewed two social workers at the health center as well as two employees in the students’ union who are mainly responsible for school bar.

Research shows that student-athletes, whether at the high school or collegiate ranks, experience higher rates of alcohol consumption than their non-athlete student counterparts. However, one population that has not been studied is the community college student-athlete. Traditional community college students have different risk categories and needs than traditional 4-year university students. In this study, community college student-athletes provided their views and perceptions on drugs and alcohol. To obtain data, a qualitative narrative analysis was completed by interviewing 13 community college student-athletes to identify their views and opinions on drugs and alcohol. Once the interviews were completed, transcription and coding were completed to identify the themes and nuances of the narratives. The major themes identified within the study included varying perspectives in how student-athletes view drugs and the perceived effects that drugs have on athletic performance. Researchers have found that collegiate student-athletes experience unique stressors, when compared with other college students, such as balancing athletics and academics. However, in this study, an additional stressor outside of previous research was discovered in that community college, student-athletes struggle with the transition to the community college environment. Additional research is needed on community college student-athletes, including the possible development of tailored interventions to meet those targeted needs.

Developmental and prevention researchers aim to determine how unhealthy behaviors emerge. Mediation analysis offers a statistical tool that allows researchers to describe the processes underlying early risk and later health outcomes. Among existing longitudinal mediation models, latent difference score mediation stands out due to its unique ability to capture variations in changes both within and across individuals, as well as its ability to examine non-linear change over time. However, the literature currently lacks sample size guidelines for latent difference mediation models, which has proven to make the use of these models difficult. The current project addresses this limitation by offering an empirical set of sample guidelines for a variety of latent difference mediation score models through a Monte Carlo simulation study. By offering empirical sample size guidelines for latent difference score mediation models, future developmental and prevention researchers can make informed sampling decisions prior to data collection. Moreover, women who misuse alcohol have been found to experience more severe medical consequences than men. However, minimal research has evaluated how gender specific risk factors influence its onset. The current project addresses this limitation by applying latent difference score mediation to evaluate how disordered eating behaviors among adolescent girls influence alcohol misuse among adult women.

<p>This master essay is about teenagers, alcohol and the preventing measures taken by the Swedish government. Consequences of the rising consumption of alcohol among adolescents and how to prevent dangerous alcohol consumption in the future is one of the most prioritized issues in the Swedish society today. Today there is no prevention that clearly shows any effect on teenager’s alcohol consumption and the education about the dangerous effect of alcohol is clearly not the same in schools around Sweden. To gain knowledge about how teenagers view their own consumption of alcohol we have used the Grounded Theory. This means that you collect all data from field studies. We have used questionnaire and group interviews with teenagers to collect data but we have also studied other researches about this topic. All information that we have gained from field studies generated more and more questions and theories that we try to enlighten in our research finding and then discuss in our analysis. To consume alcohol is dependent of culture; adolescents imitate adults when it comes to behavior, customs and the pattern of alcohol consumption. We can conclude that alcohol prevention needs to change focus since it is not working. Instead of only targeting teenagers the prevention program should also include adults. If you can influence adults, parents and other groups in society that may influence teenagers to change their attitude and behavior towards alcohol, then we can hope for a change in the attitude among adolescents.</p>

Background: About 800,000 people are risky drinkers in Sweden and the alcohol consumption has increased around 30% during the last 6 years. In order to counteract the negative effects of drinking there is a need to implement preventive measures at various levels in society. One place where risky drinkers could be identified is the healthcare setting. More than 10% of the visits at emergency departments and 20% of the injuries have been found to be alcohol‐related. So far, very few risky drinkers attending emergency departments receive advice about sensible drinking although there is good research evidence of the efficacy of such advice. Aim: The main aim was to explore the effects of a simple alcohol preventive routine in emergency care on staffs´ attitudes towards alcohol prevention and injury patients´ drinking pattern. Material and methods: A screening and simple advice routine was introduced at the emergency department of Motala County hospital. The staffs´ attitudes were explored by interviews with 12 staff members before the introduction and in 6 follow‐up interviews after a year. All the triage staffs´ attitudes were also measured by a questionnaire before the start of the routine and after 6 months. During the first 6 months of the routine 878 injury patients between 16 and 70 completed an alcohol screening questionnaire. During the next 6 months 647 patients received written advice about sensible drinking after having completed the screening questionnaire. A total of 619 patients included in the 12 months study period were followed‐up by telephone interview and changes in drinking pattern were analyzed. After a further 6 months of intervention a total of 2151 patients had been completing the questionnaire during the total study period of 18 months. The association between drinking pattern and different injury variables was analyzed in order to identify special risk groups and situations. Results: The staff was generally positive to alcohol prevention before the routine started and it was completed as intended. After 6 months of screening the staffs´ role legitimacy and perceived skills had increased. Despite of a further positive change in attitudes towards alcohol prevention the staff was uncertain after the study period whether emergency departments are appropriate settings for alcohol prevention. A total of 9% of the women and 31% of the men attending the emergency department for an injury were defined as risky drinkers. One single item in the questionnaire, concerning frequency of heavy episodic drinking, identified the majority of risky drinkers. In the cohort of patients,who was only screened, 34% was no longer engaged in heavy episodic drinking after 6 months and in the cohort that received written advice in addition to the screening the proportion was 25%. The latter group also increased readiness to change by 14%. The proportion of risky drinkers was higher among injury patients, 21% compared to 15% in the general population in the cathment area. This was mostly explained by a higher proportion of young men in the study group. When drinking pattern was compared, both risky and non‐risky drinkers proved to be significantly more likely than abstainers to be injured in amusement locations, parks, lakes or seas and during play or other recreational activities, when controlling for age and sex. Nine percent of the injury patients reported that they believed that their injury was related to alcohol. Half of this group was non risky‐drinkers. Conclusions: The triage staff performed the intervention as agreed, and in some aspects, which could facilitate further development of alcohol preventive measures, their attitudes changed positively. However, it appears difficult to expect alcohol preventive measures to involve more of the staff’s time than the routine tried, and other practical solutions have to be evaluated. A question about frequency of heavy episodic drinking identified the majority of risky drinkers and could be used as a single screening question. There was a reasonable reduction in heavy episodic drinking among the injury patients. The lack of a control group makes it difficult to fully explain whether this change is a result of the injury per se, the screening and the written advice procedure or a natural fluctuation in the patients´ drinking pattern. More studies are needed in order to establish the minimal levels of intervention in routine care that is accepted by the staff, and has a reasonable effect on risky drinkers’ alcohol consumption.

This dissertation explored a number of themes associated with adolescent drug and alcohol prevention among culturally diverse Northern Australian adolescents. It was undertaken because important differences are often associated with specific cultural groups and local knowledge is often needed as a means of informing effective prevention programs. Five studies are presented, each, with its own hypotheses, results and conclusions that examine influences on the common dependent variable of adolescent substance use. In consultation with teachers a new universal school-based drug and alcohol prevention program was developed addressing the four most commonly used substances among Australian adolescents, namely alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis and inhalants. The program was predicated on the social influence and alcohol harm minimisation models and was successful in reducing alcohol initiation and increasing cannabis and inhalant refusal self-efficacy among non-initiates. Program delivery is equally as important and program content and prevention programs utilising interactive teaching have been found to be more effective in preventing adolescent substance use than those delivered in a didactic or non-interactive style. The implementation evaluation found that teachers delivered less of the interactive program contents (49%) compared with the non-interactive components (84%). Quality of program delivery may have explained the limited efficacy of the school program to reduce cigarette use and to deter use among those who had already initiated substance use. Additionally three descriptive studies explored variables representing risk and protection for adolescent substance use. Key finding were that cultural identity was observed to be protective of both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous alcohol initiation but was associated with risk for Indigenous youth who had any number of drinking friends; that drinking parents had a strong direct effect on adolescent drinking independent of friends’ use; and a lack of school connectedness was associated with increased adolescent smoking and drinking. This dissertation demonstrated that a school drug education program in its self cannot effectively prevent adolescent drug use. While improvements can be made to current teaching practices, school curricula need to be supplemented with multi-modal programs that aim to selectively reduce parental substance use and improve the school experience for all students.

The aim of this thesis was to generate knowledge about alcohol consumption among patients in a Swedish ED, the reach and effectiveness of a computerized brief intervention delivered in the ED, and factors that are associated with reduced alcohol consumption 6 months after the ED visit. The results from the studies show that alcohol consumption was higher among patients who were injured than patients who were not injured. Injury patients had a higher weekly consumption, drank more frequently and drank higher typical quantities than non-injury patients. Patients who were categorized as acute drinkers had higher weekly alcohol consumption and were more frequently engaged in heavy episodic drinking (HED) than non-acute drinkers. Among the patients who took part in the computerized test, more than 15% stated that they were at the preparation stage or actively motivated to change their alcohol consumption. Of the patients who were categorized as acute drinkers, 34% were at the action or preparation stage. Among patients who were categorized as risky drinkers, 48% became non-risky drinkers at follow-up. The relative change in average weekly consumption among risky drinkers was 30% and the relative change in HED occasions per month was 37% from baseline to follow-up. Motivated to reduce alcohol consumption at baseline, influenced by just visiting the ED, considering the alcohol-related feedback information and impact from a health care provider are independent predictors for reduced alcohol consumption.