Adolescent alcohol and tobacco use/abuse: The efficacy of a brief motivational interviewing and skills training program

Funded Activity Summary

Alcohol abuse (regular and episodic heavy drinking) and tobacco use are common and increasing amongst young Australians. Around 49% of adolescents are regular drinkers, and 15.5% of females and 33% of males are occasional binge drinkers. Between 17.5% and 35.5% of adolescents smoke and this has increased from 1987. While the majority of young Australians moderate their drinking and smoking over time, about 5% will become heavy drinkers and 20% will become regular smokers. The public health consequences of heavy drinking and smoking are now well documented. There are many studies exploring the effectiveness of universal prevention programs designed to reduce the chance of alcohol and tobacco problems in high school students. These are associated with short term reductions in the chance of smoking and heavy drinking, however it is unclear whether these programs work for adolescents who are at high risk of alcohol problems and sustained smoking. We know a lot about the sorts of risk factors associated with these problems. They include early onset of use, parental involvement and use, particular personality traits, poor marks, peer use, and poor social skills. There is no research that clearly evaluates prevention programs for adolescents who show these risk factors. In this research, a program tailored for high-risk adolescents will be compared to an educational program similar to what is often received in Australian high schools. It is expected that high-risk students will not show changes in the educational program, but will show long-term improvements after completing the enhanced program. If these results hold, the research will have very important implications for detecting high-risk students and modifying the ways in which these adolescents are treated so that we minimise the chance of further development of alcohol and tobacco problems. This could result in large health cost savings in the future.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2002

End Date: 01-01-2004

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $153,610.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Health Counselling

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

adolescent | adolescent problem drinking | adolescent smoking | alcohol and tobacco | brief secondary prevention program | enhancing standard interventions | family communication problems | risk and protective factors

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