Preventing alcohol use with a universal school-based intervention: results from an effectiveness study.

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Adolescent Health
• Substance Abuse Prevention

Background:

• The universal school-based
• Unge & Rus
• [Youth & Alcohol] program is widely implemented in Norway to prevent adolescent alcohol use and modify related attitudes.
• Key outcome measures included monthly alcohol consumption frequency, attitudes, perceived behavioral control (PBC), alcohol expectancies, and knowledge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the
• Unge & Rus
• [Youth & Alcohol] program on adolescent alcohol use and related psychosocial factors.

Main Methods:

• A longitudinal, quasi-experimental study involving 2,020 junior high students (mean age 13.5 years) from 41 Norwegian schools.
• Data were collected at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and one-year follow-up.
• Multilevel analysis was employed to account for nested data structures (observations within students within classes).

Main Results:

• The intervention group demonstrated significantly increased alcohol-related knowledge compared to the control group at one-year follow-up (p < .005).
• No significant differences were observed between groups in monthly alcohol use frequency, alcohol-related attitudes, PBC, or alcohol expectancy at follow-up.

Conclusions:

• The study provides data on the effectiveness of the
• Unge & Rus
• [Youth & Alcohol] program in its current implementation.
• The program's effectiveness does not surpass that of standard alcohol education curricula in schools.