Development, implementation, and evaluation of a multi-addiction prevention program for primary school students in...

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Addiction Prevention
• Educational Interventions

Background:

• Primary school students are vulnerable to developing addictive behaviors.
• Early intervention is crucial for preventing long-term psychosocial issues.
• The B.E.S.T. Teen Program targets key competencies in young adolescents.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the B.E.S.T. Teen Program in promoting psychosocial competence.
• To determine if enhancing behavioral, emotional, social, and thinking skills can prevent addiction in primary school students.
• To explore the potential of psychosocial competence promotion as an addiction prevention strategy.

Main Methods:

• A non-equivalent group pretest-posttest experimental-control design was used for objective outcome evaluation.
• Subjective outcome evaluation was conducted to gather students' perceptions of the program.
• The study involved 382 Primary 5 and 297 Primary 6 students from five Hong Kong primary schools.

Main Results:

• Evaluation findings suggest that young adolescents benefited from participating in the B.E.S.T. Teen Program.
• Objective and subjective evaluations converged to indicate positive outcomes.
• The program demonstrated potential in enhancing students' psychosocial competencies.

Conclusions:

• Promoting psychosocial competence is a viable and promising strategy for addiction prevention in primary school students.
• The findings have implications for the development and implementation of future adolescent addiction prevention programs.
• Further research and evaluation are warranted to refine and scale such interventions.