Responsible Alcohol Use Research Articles

The Pediatrician

Alcohol consumption by pediatric patients and their parents can have a significant impact on the health and development of the children and adolescents. The pediatrician can help prevent or reduce alcohol-induced impairments by providing education and guidance about the responsible use of alcohol and by initiating early intervention if necessary.

The effect of ‘standard drink’ labelling on the ability of drinkers to pour a ‘standard drink’

Australia's National Health Policy on Alcohol has recommended that beverage containers be labelled so that alcohol content is 'readily understandable by the public'. Health promotion to increase the responsible use of alcohol now relies extensively on the concept of a standard drink--usually defined as 10 g of ethyl alcohol. Numerous difficulties confront a drinker who wishes to apply the standard drink system to monitor alcohol intake. This report describes a series of experimental tests of the proposal that these difficulties are minimised if alcohol containers have their alcohol content indicated in terms of standard drinks in addition to the usual percentage alcohol by volume method. Subjects were drinkers recruited from a Perth shopping mall and were tested only on beverage types they had consumed within the previous week. They were required to pour what they judged to be a single standard drink from a 750 ml bottle of either wine or beer. Beer drinkers achieved greater accuracy in this task when the bottles had standard drink labels, even when the glass size and beverage strength were varied. Wine drinkers had equal difficulty with this task whether standard drink or percentage labels were used. The addition of a 'ladder' up the side of a wine bottle with graduations in standard drinks would be necessary for wine drinkers to achieve a high level of accuracy. We conclude that labelling drink containers with their alcohol content in terms of standard drinks would better equip all drinkers to follow the advice of health educators.

A retrospective study of risk-taking and alcohol-mediated unprotected intercourse

The search for possible causal mechanisms leading to unprotected intercourse in males is the current focus of a great deal of psychosocial research. A retrospective questionnaire study of male undergraduate students (N = 332) examined the role of alcohol use and risk-taking behavior as a contributor to unprotected intercourse. Respondents' degree of risk-taking behavior during various periods of their life, and their alcohol use patterns and unprotected intercourse during their freshman and senior years of college were analyzed by a structural model. Results indicate a good model fit and suggest that older adolescent/young adult males may engage in riskier sexual behavior when using alcohol. Additionally, specific early behavior patterns appear to be the best predictor, from the variables in our model, of subsequent behavior. The findings of this study and other studies demonstrate that safe-sex instructional techniques designed for adolescents and young adults may benefit by focusing partly on responsible alcohol use.

The persistence of experimentally induced cognitive change: a neglected dimension in the assessment of drug prevention programs.

Evaluations of alcohol education programs employing social psychological principles in an attempt to persuade subjects to adopt a favorable attitude toward responsible alcohol use have been mixed—some show attitude change while others find no significant impact. This inconsistency in the research literature may be a joint result of an unsystematic implementation of factors known to influence persuasion, and a neglect to study the persistence of experimentally induced attitude change. The present study, though a randomized split-plot design, sought to provide data relevant to a partial resolution of these inconsistencies. The results indicated that knowledge retention was greater under conditions of a “credible” communicator and under conditions of “low” fear appeal and, that these effects persisted through time. The findings regarding attitude change were somewhat disappointing—no significant differences were found upon post-experimental assessment and no significant differences emerged with the passage of time. The absence of a measurable impact on attitudes may reflect the fact that only a one week follow-up was used. If greater time spans were employed, real differences may emerge through the “sleeper effect.” Given this likelihood, it is suggested that future research efforts incorporate the persistence factor in their statistical designs, thereby providing a firmer basis for assessing the true impact of alcohol education programs on altered cognitions and internalized attitudes.

Alcohol-related advertisements in a college newspaper.

The college newspaper is a powerful socializing force on the university campus. Within the general context of a university-based Alcohol Abuse Prevention Project, the present investigation examined alcohol related advertising in a college newspaper at one southern university. Ads were categorized into those: (1) promoting the responsible use of alcohol, (2) promoting the irresponsible use of alcohol, and (3) having a neutral content. Results indicated that a great deal of alcohol-related advertising was presented in this publication, and the majority of advertising did not promote responsible use of the beverage. The potential role of the community-oriented professional as an intervention strategist is discussed.

Effects of a Controlled-Usage Alcohol Education Program Based on the Health Belief Model

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects that a controlled-usage alcohol education program had on a university population. The program was developed incorporating factors of the Health Belief Model (HBM) and persuasive communication strategies. Observation in the form of a questionnaire occurred during the second, fourth, and ninth weeks of the academic quarter. The results of the multivariate analysis of variance demonstrated the overall effectiveness of the program. Univariate comparisons between experimental and control groups demonstrating statistical significance (p < .05) were behavioral intention towards responsible alcohol use and knowledge about alcohol. Discussion of the results and recommendations for further research are reported.