The Outcomes of an Alcohol Prevention Program on Parents' Rule Setting and Self-Efficacy: A Bi-Directional Model

Introduction: Most adolescents have their first encounter with alcohol in early or middle adolescence. Parents’ rule setting about alcohol is important in delaying the onset and reducing the frequency of adolescents’ alcohol drinking, and, therefore, it is important to know how to increase such parenting practices. Parents’ beliefs about their ability to influence adolescents’ drinking habits (i.e., parental self-efficacy [PSE]) might be one potential mechanism in increasing parents’ rule setting. In this study, we examined the direction of influence between parents’ rule setting and PSE as outcomes of the program “Prevention of Alcohol use in Students” (PAS), a prevention program aiming to reduce underage drinking.

Method: PAS is a prevention program that targets Dutch parents and their children (age 12 at baseline). To examine the processes of interest for this study, we used a sample of 2,562 parent-adolescent dyads followed annually over three years. Participants were randomly assigned to one out of four conditions: (1) a parent-only intervention, which focused on helping parents to stay strict and enforce rules about children’s alcohol use, (2) a student-only intervention that targeted the students’ abilities to develop a healthy attitude toward alcohol use and to train their refusal skills, (3) a combined intervention that carried out both the parent and student interventions, and (4) a control condition in which participants did not receive any intervention. We tested two mediation processes in which the program would (a) increase parents’ rule-setting via an increase in PSE, or (b) increase parents’ rule-setting, which in turn would increase PSE.

Results: The results showed that the combined intervention, only, increased PSE via an increase in parents’ rule setting. Hence, interventions that target parents rule setting and adolescents’ attitudes about alcohol were shown to have a positive impact on parents’ rule setting and in turn PSE, rather than the opposite direction of influence.

Conclusions: This is the first study to test the mediation processes involving PSE and parental rule setting in an experimental context where parenting practices are being actively changed. The results suggest that giving parents concrete advice on how to set rules about alcohol drinking in their adolescents, and at the same time helping adolescents to develop healthy attitudes about alcohol drinking have a positive influence on parents’ self-efficacy.