Alcohol harm reduction education in schools: planning an efficacy study in Australia (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2014
Background: In Australia, the burden of alcohol-attributable harm falls most heavily on young people. Prevention is important, and schools have long been seen as appropriate settings for pre-emptive interventions with this high risk group. This paper evaluates the effectiveness, in relation to alcohol harm prevention, of the Drug Education in Victorian Schools (DEVS) programme, nine months after implementation. This intervention dealt with both licit and illicit drugs, employed a harm minimisation approach that incorporated interactive, skill based, teaching methods and capitalised on parental influence through home activities. Methods: A cluster randomised, controlled trial of the first ten lessons of the DEVS drug education programme was conducted with year eight students, aged 13-14 years. Twenty-one secondary schools in Victoria, Australia were randomly allocated to receive the DEVS programme (14 schools, n = 1163) or the drug education usually provided by their schools (7 schools, n = 589). Self-reported changes were measured in relation to: knowledge and attitudes, communication with parents, drug education lessons remembered, proportion of drinkers, alcohol consumption (quantity multiplied by frequency), proportion of student drinkers engaging in risky consumption, and the number of harms experienced as a result of alcohol consumption. Results: In comparison to the controls, there was a significantly greater increase in the intervention students' knowledge about drugs, including alcohol (p ≤ 0.001); there was a significant change in their level of communication with parents about alcohol (p = 0.037); they recalled receiving significantly more alcohol education (p < 0.001); their alcohol consumption increased significantly less (p = 0.011); and they experienced a lesser increase in harms associated with their drinking (p ≤ 0.001). There were no significant differences between the two study groups in relation to changes in attitudes towards alcohol or in the proportion of drinkers or risky drinkers. There was, however, a notable trend of less consumption by risky drinkers in the intervention group. Conclusions: A comprehensive, harm minimisation focused school drug education programme is effective in increasing general drug knowledge, and reducing alcohol consumption and harm.
Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy, 2012
Aim: This pilot study investigated what alcohol prevention benefits could be achieved by a harm reduction focused school drug education intervention that addressed all drug use, both licit and illicit. Method: The study population comprised a cohort of 225 students in three intervention secondary schools and 93 students in a matched control school in Victoria, Australia. A classroom drug education programme, derived from evidence of effective practice and designed to reduce alcohol and other drug harm, was provided to the intervention students during years eight (13-14 year olds) and nine (14-15 year olds) by teachers trained in its delivery. The control students received the drug education programme normally provided by their school. Findings: The students, who received the intervention, were more knowledgeable about drug use issues, communicated more with their parents about alcohol, drank less, got drunk less, and experienced fewer alcohol related harms. They also remembered receiving more alcohol lessons. They were, however, no less likely to have tried alcohol. Conclusions: The findings are consistent with other studies that have demonstrated school alcohol education that focuses on harm reduction can be effective in reducing consumption, risk and harm. In this study, this was achieved even though the students were not persuaded against taking up drinking, and the intervention did not focus solely on alcohol. These findings have implications for both the goals and coverage of future school drug education programmes.
Addiction, 2000
Aims. The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project aims to reduce alcohol-related harm by enhancing students' abilities to identify and deal with high-risk drinking situations particularly likely to be encountered by young people. Design. The SHAHRP study has adopted a quasi-experimental research design, incorporating intervention and control groups and measuring change over a 3-year period. Setting. The study is set in metropolitan, government secondary schools (13-17-year-olds) in Perth, Western Australia. The 14 schools involved in the SHAHRP study represent approximately 23% of government secondary schools in the Perth metropolitan area. Participants. The sample was selected using cluster sampling, with strati cation by socio-economic area, and involves over 2300 intervention and control students from junior secondary schools. Seventy-three per cent (73.7%) of students completed surveys at both baseline and rst follow-up. Intervention. The intervention incorporated evidence-based approaches to enhance potential for behaviour change in the target population. The intervention is a curriculum-based programmeme with an explicit harm minimization goal and will be conducted in two phases over a 2-year period. Measures and ndings. The early results of the study demonstrate initial knowledge and attitude change, predicted by the students' involvement in the intervention. A surprising impact of the rst phase of SHAHRP was the signi cant difference in alcohol consumption and harms between control and intervention groups, with the SHAHRP group demonstrating a signi cantly lower increase in alcohol consumption than the control group. Students who were supervised drinkers at baseline and who received the SHAHRP intervention were overwhelmingly represented in the change results. Conclusions. Results from phase one of the SHAHRP study suggest that classroom-based alcohol education programmemes can reduce harm, particularly in students who are supervised drinkers prior to the intervention.
Addiction, 2004
The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP study) aimed to reduce alcohol-related harm in secondary school students. Design The study used a quasi-experimental research design in which randomly selected and allocated intervention and comparison groups were assessed at eight, 20 and 32 months after baseline. Setting Metropolitan, government secondary schools in Perth, Western Australia. Participants The sample involved over 2300 students. The retention rate was 75.9% over 32 months. Intervention The evidence-based intervention, a curriculum programme with an explicit harm minimization goal, was conducted in two phases over a 2year period. Measures Knowledge, attitude, total alcohol consumption, risky consumption, context of use, harm associated with own use and harm associated with other people's use of alcohol. Findings There were significant knowledge, attitude and behavioural effects early in the study, some of which were maintained for the duration of the study. The intervention group had significantly greater knowledge during the programme phases, and significantly safer alcohol-related attitudes to final followup, but both scores were converging by 32 months. Intervention students were significantly more likely to be non-drinkers or supervised drinkers than were comparison students. During the first and second programme phases, intervention students consumed 31.4% and 31.7% less alcohol. Differences were converging 17 months after programme delivery. Intervention students were 25.7%, 33.8% and 4.2% less likely to drink to risky levels from first follow-up onwards. The intervention reduced the harm that young people reported associated with their own use of alcohol, with intervention students experiencing 32.7%, 16.7% and 22.9% less harm from first follow-up onwards. There was no impact on the harm that students reported from other people's use of alcohol.
Drugs-education Prevention and Policy, 2017
Aims: The Drug Education in Victorian Schools (DEVS) programme taught about licit and illicit drugs over two years (2010-11), with follow up in the third year (2012). It focused on minimizing harm, and employed participatory, critical-thinking and skill-focused pedagogy. This study evaluated the programme's residual effectiveness at follow up in reducing alcoholrelated risk and harm. Methods: A cluster-randomized, controlled trial was conducted with a student cohort during years eight (13-14 years old), nine (14-15 years old) and ten (15-16 years old). Schools were randomly allocated to the DEVS programme (14 schools, n=1163), or their usual drug education (7 schools, n=589). Multi-level models were fitted to the data, which were analysed on an intent-to-treat basis. Statistically significant findings: Over the three years there was a greater increase in intervention students' knowledge about drugs, including alcohol. Their alcohol consumption did not increase as much as controls. Their alcohol-related harms decreased, while increasing for controls. There were fewer intervention group risky drinkers, and they reduced their consumption compared to controls. Similarly, harms decreased for intervention group risky drinkers, while increasing for controls. Conclusions: Skill-focused, harm minimization drug education can remain effective, subsequent to programme completion, in reducing students' alcohol consumption and harm, even with risky drinkers.
Journal of drug education, 2015
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 ...
Early unsupervised drinking-reducing the risks. The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project
Drug and Alcohol Review, 2003
The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP) aimed to reduce alcohol-related harm by enhancing students' abilities to identify and deal with high-risk drinking situations and issues. The SHAHRP study involved a quasiexperimental research design, incorporating intervention and control groups and measuring change over a 32-month period. The study occurred in metropolitan, government secondary schools (13 -17-year-olds) in Perth, Western Australia. The 14 intervention and control schools involved in the SHAHRP study represent approximately 23% of government secondary schools in the Perth metropolitan area. The sample was selected using cluster sampling, with stratification by socio-economic area, and involved over 2300 intervention and control students from junior secondary schools. The retention rate of the study was 75.9% over 32 months. The intervention incorporated evidence-based approaches to enhance potential for behaviour change in the target population. The intervention was a classroom-based programme, with an explicit harm minimization goal, and was conducted in two phases over a 2-year period. The results were analysed by baseline context of alcohol use to assess the impact of the programme on students with varying experience with alcohol. Knowledge and attitudes were modified simultaneously after the first phase of the intervention in all baseline context of use groups. The programme had little behavioural impact on baseline supervised drinkers; however, baseline non-drinkers and unsupervised drinkers were less likely to consume alcohol in a risky manner, compared to their corresponding control groups. In line with programme goals, early unsupervised drinkers from the intervention group were also significantly less likely to experience harm associated with their own use of alcohol compared to the corresponding control group. Unsupervised drinkers experienced 18.4% less alcohol-related harm after participating in both phases of the programme and this difference was maintained (19.4% difference) 17 months after the completion of the programme. This study indicates that a school drug education programme needs to be offered in several phases, that programme components may need to be included to cater for the differing baseline context of use groups, and that early unsupervised drinkers experience less alcoholrelated harm after participating in a harm reduction programme. [McBride N, Farringdon F, Midford R, Meuleners L, Phillips M. Early unsupervised drinking-reducing the risks. The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project. Drug Alcohol Rev 2003;22:263 -276]
Australian school-based prevention programs for alcohol and other drugs: A systematic review
Drug and Alcohol Review, 2012
Although a number of international school-based prevention programs exist, the majority show minimal effects in reducing drug use and related harms. Given the emphasis on early intervention and prevention in Australia, it is timely to review the programs currently trialled in Australian schools.This paper reports the type and efficacy of Australian school-based prevention programs for alcohol and other drugs. Approach. Cochrane, PsychInfo and PubMed databases were searched.Additional materials were obtained from authors, websites and reference lists. Studies were selected if they described programs developed and trialled in Australia that address prevention of alcohol and other drug use in schools. Key Findings. Eight trials of seven intervention programs were identified. The programs targeted alcohol, cannabis and tobacco and most were based on social learning principles. All were universal. Five of the seven intervention programs achieved reductions in alcohol, cannabis and tobacco use at follow up. Conclusion. Existing school-based prevention programs have shown to be efficacious in the Australian context. However, there are only a few programs available, and these require further evaluative research. This is critical, given that substance use is such a significant public health problem. The findings challenge the commonly held view that school-based prevention programs are not effective. [Teesson M, Newton NC, Barrett EL. Australian school-based prevention programs for alcohol and other drugs: A systematic review. Drug Alcohol Rev 2012]
Drugs-education Prevention and Policy, 2017
As a group, adolescents exhibit a high rate of use of alcohol and illicit drugs, and a very broad range of preventative interventions have been employed to target this problem. A correspondingly large number of studies have been carried out to test the effects of such interventions. However, the impact studies rarely describe the actual content of the interventions in detail. Consequently, less is known about what was actually done in the prevention programmes than about their effects. This study is designed as a review focused on grouping the qualitatively different content components of the various approaches into a number of categories. This is achieved through a systematic review of literature from Western countries on the topic of school-based interventions and prevention initiatives targeting young people aged 12-20 and their consumption of alcohol and other drugs. We employ a modified version of the narrative synthesis approach described (Rodgers et al., 2009). The initial database used for the study consisted of 897 peer-reviewed academic articles published between January 2010 and December 2014 and retrieved from the databases Web of Science, PubMed, Sociological Abstracts and PsycINFO. This number was reduced to 33 studies through the elimination of irrelevant papers. Five categories of intervention were identified: 'Information-based or testing-based primary prevention approaches', 'Primary prevention approaches incorporating skill-training components', 'Universal or primary prevention approaches that include family components', 'Targeted approaches incorporating skilltraining components', and 'Approaches incorporating digital features'. Only four studies were identified that employed any form of targeting or profiling of the subjects prior to the delivery of