The entries below are our accounts of documents collected by Drug and Alcohol Findings as relevant to improving outcomes from drug or alcohol interventions in the UK. The original documents were not published by Findings; click on the Titles to obtain copies. Free reprints may also be available from the authors. If displayed, click prepared e-mail to adapt the pre-prepared e-mail message or compose your own message. The Summary is intended to convey the findings and views expressed in the document. Below may be a commentary from Drug and Alcohol Findings.
All three main entries update a review of alcohol use prevention trials up to 2002 conducted for the Cochrane collaboration. These new reviews split the original in to three: school-based programmes; family and parenting programmes; and multi-component programmes combining these and other elements. They included only the most rigorous trials which randomly allocated participants the focal intervention or to an alternative. Generally results were patchy, some positive findings could be questioned on methodological grounds, and the reviews were unable to say what made some programmes work and others not. This family of Cochrane reviews seems to confirm that if the decision were to be based on science, alcohol-specific prevention based on persuasion and education would have a minor and uncertain place in the overall prevention armoury.
School-based alcohol prevention best when it does not target alcohol ...
See also our review of probably the most thoroughly researched drug education programme and our hot topic on how to prevent drug use without mentioning drugs
Working with families helps prevent adolescent drinking ...
See also this Findings review of one of the best known family programmes
More does not always mean better in preventing youth drinking ...