A resilience-based alcohol education intervention for adolescents in the UK

Abstract

Background: Alcohol education often encourages avoidance of excessive drinking, but is rarely designed to help young people to develop the skills required to manage alcohol in social situations. A resilience-based approach could help young people to limit alcohol intake by encouraging the development of skills to manage alcohol in social situations. Methods: We developed a two-lesson school-based intervention designed to model, and facilitate discussion of, moderate drinking. A prospective longitudinal design was used to examine the intervention impact on personal resilience, drink-refusal self-efficacy (DRSE), and intended and actual alcohol intake. The sample consisted of 16-18 year olds in intervention schools and 2 control schools (total N = 500). Findings: Analyses provide important information about students’ responses to the new classroom materials. Comparisons between intervention and control schools indicate that these new lessons may have an important impact on resilience, DRSE, and alcohol intake. Discussion: Resilience-based interventions employing realistic models of behaviour may be an important complement to existing alcohol education in facilitating healthy behaviours among young people, particularly in cultures of normative alcohol use.