A school-based intervention to reduce the frequency of impaired driving among Grade 11 students was evaluated in the City of Hamilton, Ontario. The intervention was structured in accordance with the principles of the Health Belief Model and was delivered to a sample of 121 students. A questionnaire, consisting of seven scales, was used to measure impact on the students, and was administered before and after the intervention. The questionnaire was also administered to a sample of ninety-three students from other schools who served as a non-randomized comparison group. Significant positive changes along a number of dimensions were found among students who received the intervention as compared to those who did not. These include the dimensions of Alcohol Knowledge, Marijuana Knowledge, Personal Susceptibility to Consequences, Opposition to Driving While Impaired, and Behavioral Intentions to Drive While Impaired. No change was found in the dimension that measured Perceived Seriousness of Consequences, but pretest scores were very high for both groups of students and a “ceiling effect” may have occurred. Drinking Frequency increased to a modest extent among a significant proportion of the students who received the intervention when compared to those who did not. The reasons for this phenomenon are speculated upon and options to address it are discussed.
An eight session program of alcohol education for parents developed by the U. S. National Council on Alcohol Education was field tested by staff of the Addiction Research Foundation in six Western Ontario communities in 1981. The program, entitled “Decisions and Drinking: The Power of Positive Parenting,” consists of a series of structured learning experiences for parents of young children. Its purpose is to prevent the development of alcohol-related problems in young children by instructing their parents regarding the importance of role-modelling, decision-making, and parental alcohol use. The evaluation was focussed on the effects of the program on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of the participants with respect to parenting and alcohol use. It was found that the program increased the alcohol knowledge of participants, and influenced their attitudes toward parenting in an undesirable direction. Difficulties in field-testing and implications for further evaluation or program implementation are discussed.
The Community Alcohol Use Scale (CAUS) was developed as a continuous, reliable, valid, and acceptable measure for primary prevention studies. Items were written following a comprehensive review of the literature on alcohol dependence and alcoholism. Based upon the responses of 315 respondents to the 100-item initial version of the scale, the 45-item CAUS was developed. The CAUS was then cross-validated on a local sample (n = 274) and a provincial sample (n = 745). Estimates of internal consistency were .91, .96, and .94, respectively, for the initial and cross-validation samples. Correlations of .48 and .69 were obtained between the CAUS and the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test for the initial and local cross-validation samples. In the provincial cross-validation sample a correlation of .62 was obtained between the CAUS and the Usual Weekly Alcohol Index. Preliminary cutting scores were developed to identify those at risk for alcoholism, and alcoholics. The CAUS has potential use as an evaluative and predictive instrument in a variety of primary prevention programs.
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