Evaluation of a School-Based Alcohol Prevention Program in Norway. Changes in Parents' Attitudes, Rules and School/Home Collaboration

Introduction:

Alcohol is one of the most common and serious risk factors of health problems among youth. Some alcohol prevention programmes targeting parents as a protective factor have shown positive effects in reducing underage drinking among adolescents (Foxcroft et al., 2003).

The purpose of the W8 [wait] project is to evaluate a Norwegian school based program called Youth and Alcohol. The program targets parents,  adolescents,  and teachers, and it has not previously been evaluated. The aim of this sub-study is to evaluate whether the program creates changes in parents’ attitudes towards adolescent drinking, rules at home and improves the school home partnership.

Methods:

The W8 [wait] study has a quasi-experimental design with an intervention group and a comparison group of parents. The total sample is 1066 parents with an age range from 31 to 51 years or older, with 72% of the parents between 41 to 50 years old. Data were collected at three time points using  a web-based questionnaire. The survey included questions on parents attitudes on alcohol use for adolescents, general rules at home, satisfaction with school home collaboration in addition to demographic variables. For the parents attitudes, a positive gain score means that they have become more restrictive towards adolescents alcohol use. Positive gain score on Rules means that the parents employ less strict rules at home. Higher gain scores on school home collaboration means increased satisfaction with collaboration. Gain scores were calculated for the two groups, and differences were tested with an independent samples t-test.

Results:

Results from the study indicated no significant changes in gain scores  between the intervention (M_diff  = -,027, SD_diff = 2,64) and the control (M_diff = -,083, SD_diff = 2,76) group on parents attitudes on alcohol. Change scores on parents rules at home between the intervention group (M_diff = 1,03, SD_diff = 2,80) and the control group (M_diff = 1,30, SD_diff = 2,77) showed no significant difference. The school/home collaboration gain score did not differ significantly  between the intervention  (M_diff = -0,47, SD_diff = ,84) and the control (M_diff = - ,11, SD_diff = ,82) group.

Conclusions:

These preliminary findings from the Youth and Alcohol program shows no significant changes on parents measures on attitudes, rules and school home collaboration.