A cognitive-behavioral approach to substance abuse prevention: one-year follow-up.

This study presents one-year follow-up data from an evaluation study testing the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral substance abuse prevention approach which emphasizes the teaching of social resistance skills within the larger context of an intervention designed to enhance general social and personal competence. The follow-up study involved 998 eighth graders from 10 suburban New York junior high schools. Two schools were assigned to each of the following conditions (a) peer-led intervention, (b) peer-led intervention with booster sessions, (c) teacher-led intervention, (d) teacher-led intervention with booster sessions, and (e) control. The original intervention was implemented in the seventh grade; the booster intervention was implemented during the eighth grade. Results indicate that this type of prevention strategy, when implemented by peer leaders in the seventh grade and when additional booster sessions are provided during the eighth grade, can reduce tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. Similar effects are evident for females when the prevention program is implemented with fidelity by classroom teachers. Moreover, the prevention program is also capable of producing a significant impact on several hypothesized mediating variables.

Prevention of alcohol misuse through the development of personal and social competence: a pilot study.

Seventh graders (N = 239) from two New York City junior high schools were involved in a 9-month study testing the efficacy of a broad-spectrum approach to prevention of alcohol misuse. The two schools were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. The seventh graders in the treatment school received a 20-session program targeted at the major cognitive, attitudinal, social and personality factors believed to promote the early stages of alcohol misuse. The program contained material on decision making, coping with anxiety, general social skills and assertiveness (including techniques for resisting peer pressure to drink) as well as information about the short- and long-term consequences of alcohol misuse. Complete pretest, posttest 1 and posttest 2 data were collected from 167 students (89 women). A significantly greater proportion of the students in the experimental group reported less frequent drinking (p less than .02), less drinking per occasion (p less than .04), and less frequent episodes of drunkenness (p less than .01) than the students in the control group.

A cognitive-behavioral approach to substance abuse prevention.

The effectiveness of a 20 session cognitive-behavioral approach to substance abuse prevention was tested on seventh grade students (n = 1,311) from 10 suburban New York junior high schools. The prevention strategy attempted to reduce intrapersonal pressure to smoke, drink excessively, or use marijuana by fostering the development of general life skills as well as teaching students tactics for resisting direct interpersonal pressure to use these substances. Additionally, this study was designed to compare the relative effectiveness of this type of prevention program when implemented by either older peer leaders or regular classroom teachers. Results indicated that the prevention program had a significant impact on cigarette smoking, excessive drinking, and marijuana use when implemented by peer leaders. Furthermore, significant changes were also evident with respect to selected cognitive, attitudinal, and personality predisposing variables in a direction consistent with non-substance use. These results provide further support for the efficacy of a broad-spectrum smoking prevention strategy and tentative support for its applicability to the prevention of other forms of substance abuse.