Differential Impact of a Dutch Alcohol Prevention Program Targeting Adolescents and Parents Separately and Simultaneously: Low Self-Control and Lenient Parenting at Baseline Predict Effectiveness

Abstract

To test whether baseline levels of the factors accountable for the impact of the Prevention of Alcohol use in Students (PAS) intervention (self-control, perceived rules about alcohol and parental attitudes about alcohol), moderate the effect of the intervention. A cluster randomized trial including 3,490 Dutch early adolescents (M age = 12.66, SD = 0.49) and their parents randomized over four conditions: 1) parent intervention, 2) student intervention, 3) combined intervention and 4) control group. Moderators at baseline were used to examine the differential effects of the interventions on onset of (heavy) weekly drinking at 34-month follow-up. The combined intervention was only effective in preventing weekly drinking among those adolescents who reported to have lower self-control and more lenient parents at baseline. No differential effect was found for the onset of heavy weekly drinking. No moderating roles of self-control and lenient parenting were found for the separate student and parent interventions regarding the onset of drinking. The combined intervention is more effective among adolescents with low-self control and lenient parents at baseline, both factors that were a specific target of the intervention. The relevance of targeting self-control in adolescents and restrictive parenting is underlined.

Different Trajectories of Adolescent Alcohol Use: Testing Gene–Environment Interactions

“…Average alcohol consumption in the past week was 2.32 glasses at T1 (SD = 3.71), which increased to 11.09 glasses at T6 (SD = 11.90). These descriptives on alcohol use and parental rule‐setting concur with those found in other, similar samples (Bot et al., ; Koning et al., ). A total of 398 adolescents (67%) carried the DRD2 homozygous CC genotype, while 197 (33%) were carriers of the CT or TT genotypes.…”

“…van der Zwaluw et al., ). Self‐reports on alcohol use have proven to be reliable (Engels et al., ), and the current measure has often been used in other studies (Bot et al., ; Koning et al., ).…”

Is ‘age at first drink’ a useful concept in alcohol research and prevention? We doubt that

“…Others have argued that although we still do not (fully) understand the relationship between AFD and later heavy drinking, prevention efforts should, on the basis of the precautionary principle, aim at delaying AFD. Indeed, prevention programmes aiming at preventing alcohol use in (early) adolescence have been found to reduce the prevalence of alcohol use or the prevalence of frequent drinking or drunkenness , but it is not clear whether they increased AFD. In addition, when taking the goal of delaying AFD literally, it is not clear whether the target should be a general delay in AFD by, for instance, 1 year, or whether AFD should be delayed only among the early starters.…”

Substance use outcomes in the Healthy School and Drugs program: Results from a latent growth curve approach

“…Specific characteristics of study participants may moderate the relationship between the HSD program and substance use behaviors (Conrod, Castellanos, & Mackie, 2008;Conrod, Castellanos-Ryan, & Strang, 2010;Koning, 2011;Koning, Verdurmen, Engels, Van den Eijnden, & Vollebergh, 2012;Kreamer, Wilson, Fairburn, & Agras, 2002;Skara & Sussman, 2003). This kind of information is relevant for future redevelopments of the HSD program, because it can direct future implementation and content building.…”