Poster Presentation
Thursday, July 12, 2007
9:30 AM - 10:15 AM
Thursday, July 12, 2007
3:15 PM - 4:00 PM
Health promotion in school context – assessment of the alcohol consumption phenomenon for the construction of an intervention program
Teresa Barroso, RN, MS1, Manuel Alves Rodrigues, PhD2, and Aida Cruz Mendes, PhD, RN1. (1) Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing Domain, Coimbra Nursing School, Coimbra, Portugal, (2) Coimbra Nursing School, Health Sciences' Research Unit: Nursing Domain, Coimbra, Portugal
| Learning Objective #1: recognise the role of expectations towards alcohol as a mediator factor for alcohol consumption. |
| Learning Objective #2: understand the importance of the needs previous assessment to be integrated in the planning of health promotion programmes. |
Background: Research shows that the percentage of youngsters who consume alcoholic drinks progressively raises with age, and that the starting of consumption happens in average around 12 years old. (OMS, 2002)
In Portugal, existing school health programs are “incipient, particularly the definition of projects in the areas of planning, coordination and assessment” (DGS, 2004: 38). Nurses have an important role in order to develop community health promotion through the development of health promotion projects in school settings.
Aim: Exploratory study to assess the phenomenon of alcohol consumption in two public schools in Coimbra (middle school) for the implementation of a psycho-educational program of alcohol use/abuse prevention, integrated in school curricula.
Method: Self administered questionnaire on alcohol consumption and expectancies.
Results: 654 students: 48,5% males and 51,5% females; aged between 12 to 18 years old – mean age 13; 65,1% drink alcoholic drinks; 18,1 % reported having gotten drunk at least once; 35,3% reported drinking more than one drink in a row.
Expectancies towards alcohol in global and in specific sub scales were significantly higher in youngsters who have already consumed alcoholic drinks, and older ones (older than 14). No differences were found between males and females in any subscale.
Conclusions: The present findings show that well-developed alcohol expectancies exist in very adolescent before significant drinking experience has occurred but also that expectancies are related to the accumulation of drinking experience. It is clear that prevention efforts must occur early in a child’s life if they are to be successful.
Also, it shows that the psycho-educational programs must be able to develop safe expectancies towards alcohol and take account there are no differences between males and females.
These results were included in a health promotion program developed during the school year 2006/2007 with youngsters attending the 7th grade (mean age 12 years).