PreVenture: Personality-Targeted Interventions for Adolescent Substance Misuse

COUNTRY: CANADA

REGION: AMERICAS

Implementer: Nova Scotia and Vancouver High Schools

Partners: Funding from the Alcoholic Beverages Medical Research Foundation; Canadian Institutes of Health

Program Overview: PreVenture is a personality targeted program developed for high school students in an effort to reduce overall alcohol consumption, binge drinking, and alcohol-related problems among students.

Program Design: The program content was developed to target personality types thought to be at highest risk for alcohol misuse. These included anxiety sensitive, hopelessness, and sensation seeking personality types. Curriculum for each high risk personality type was developed from the experiences and input of teens with the corresponding personality type. Participants are matched based on their personality type and then participate in two group sessions which include work from program manuals and interactive group activities. Students are also given homework to complete between sessions.

Evaluation: This program was evaluated among students from nine high schools in Vancouver and Nova Scotia, Canada. The evaluation used a randomized control trial with a pre and post-test to test the effectiveness of the personality targeted PreVenture program. Data were collected via a self-report questionnaires with items assessing past four month average quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption, past 4-month binge drinking, and alcohol related problems using the Rutgers Alcohol Problems Index (RAPI). 

Key findings¹: Comparisons of the intervention and control groups showed the following results:

• Statistically significant reductions in reported binge drinking in the intervention group
• The intervention grouped showed significantly lower quantities of alcohol consumption, however there was no significant effect with regard to frequency of consumption
• Results for problem drinking as measured by the RAPI were inconclusive due to the short intervention duration

References:

 1. Conrod, P. J., Stewart, S. H., Comeau, N., & Maclean, A. M. (2006). Efficacy of cognitive-behavioral interventions targeting personality risk factors for youth alcohol misuse. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 26(4), 550-563.

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