Original articleEffects of a School-Based Prevention Program on European Adolescents' Patterns of Alcohol Use
Section snippets
Methods
The EU-Dap trial took place simultaneously in seven European countries: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. The research protocol was approved by the Ethical Boards at the respective study centers.
Results
The baseline characteristics of the study sample are shown in Table 1.
Despite the randomization procedures, certain characteristics at baseline were unbalanced between the experimental arms, with the control group having a higher proportion of older students and of students with reports of behavioral problems related to their drinking.
Discussion
In this trial, European students who attended a new substance abuse prevention program in school were less likely to experience alcohol-related behavioral problems than students attending usual school education.
The overall frequency of alcohol consumption, however, was not affected by participation in the curriculum. A previous report from this study showed that the program was associated with a reduced frequency of recent episodes of drunkenness [21]. Taken together, these data suggest that
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge teachers and students who volunteered in this study and all colleagues who participated in the field work.
The following authors contributed significantly to the work: F.F. and M.R.G. designed the study. M.P.C. and M.R.G. drafted the paper. F.F. and R.B. contributed to revising the paper. M.P.C. and R.B. analyzed the data. The members of the EU-Dap Study Group carried out the intervention and collected the data. M.P.C. had overall responsibility for the paper. All authors
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