Adolescent alcohol consumption: protocol for a scoping review of screening and assessment tools used in Africa

Eleanor Briegal,Alice M Biggane,Angela I Obasi

doi:10.1186/s13643-021-01653-1

Abstract

BackgroundAlcohol consumption is a key public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest burden of alcohol attributable injury and disease of any region. Excess alcohol use is particularly harmful for adolescents and has been associated with neurocognitive defects and social and emotional problems. Effective screening and assessment tools are necessary to implement, evaluate and monitor interventions to prevent and decrease adolescent alcohol use. Most of these tools have been used among adolescent groups in high income settings; data on their effectiveness in Africa, where much alcohol use is unregulated, is limited. This scoping review will examine and map the range of tools in use and create an evidence base for future research in adolescent alcohol prevention and control in Africa.MethodsThe review will include all relevant study designs and grey literature. Inclusion and exclusion criteria have been designed using the Population – Concept – Context framework, and two reviewers will independently screen titles, abstracts and then full text to determine eligibility of articles. The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, CINAHL and Global Health data bases will be searched for peer reviewed publications. The search strategy for grey literature will include Google searches and searches in websites of pertinent professional bodies and charities. The methodological framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley and adaptations by the Joanna Briggs Institute and Levac et al. will be used. An iterative approach to charting, collating, summarising and reporting the data will be taken, with the development of charting forms and the final presentation of results led by the extracted data.ResultsThis scoping review protocol describes a secondary analysis of data already collected to explore and map alcohol consumption measurement tools in adolescents in Africa.ConclusionsIt is anticipated that our findings will provide an evidence base surrounding tools used to measure adolescent alcohol consumption in Africa. These findings are likely to be useful in informing future research, policy and public health strategies. Findings will be disseminated widely through peer-reviewed publication and in various media, for example, conferences, congresses or symposia.Systematic review registrationScoping Review Registration: Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/bjhgw/)

Highlights

Alcohol consumption is a key public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest burden of alcohol attributable injury and disease of any region
With 3 million deaths per year attributable to its use, alcohol is a major public health problem world-wide [1,2,3,4]. This is true in sub-Saharan Africa which has the highest burden of disease and injury attributed to alcohol of any region [1, 5]
Scoping reviews are unique in their ability to provide a broad overview of a research area, where very specific research questions have not been identified

Summary

Introduction

Alcohol consumption is a key public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest burden of alcohol attributable injury and disease of any region. Effective screening and assessment tools are necessary to implement, evaluate and monitor interventions to prevent and decrease adolescent alcohol use Most of these tools have been used among adolescent groups in high income settings; data on their effectiveness in Africa, where much alcohol use is unregulated, is limited. With 3 million deaths per year attributable to its use, alcohol is a major public health problem world-wide [1,2,3,4]. This is true in sub-Saharan Africa which has the highest burden of disease and injury attributed to alcohol of any region [1, 5]. Alongside the neurocognitive impacts of adolescent alcohol use, there is evidence that alcohol use affects social and emotional development, including family, peer and sexual relationships, as well as causing emotional changes and mental health problems [10, 11]

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Discussion

Conclusion