Psychosocial intervention for harm reduction of alcohol use among school-going adolescents from North India

Aims and Objectives: It was to evaluate the usefulness of psychosocial intervention in promoting knowledge and awareness about the harmful effects of alcohol use in a sample of adolescents. Materials and Methods: The research design was a prospective, interventional nonrandomized control group design with two groups, one experimental group (interventional) and another control group. Ethical clearance was obtained from the institutional ethical committee. Samples were selected using the nonprobability convenience sampling technique in two schools district of Patiala, Punjab. The assessment instruments were as follows: (a) semi-structured sociodemographic pro forma, (b) alcohol use pro forma, (c) semi-structured interventional knowledge questionnaire, and (d) psychosocial intervention package. A psychosocial intervention package for the prevention of alcohol use among adolescents was provided to the experimental group. Results: The target intervention population consisted of adolescents in the age group (14-18) years. Nearly half of the subjects (47.5%) in the experimental and more than half of the subjects (57.5%) in the control group had a trend of alcohol use during family functions and social gatherings. The study's results revealed that in the preintervention baseline assessment, the adolescents had an average level of knowledge regarding the ill effects of alcohol use, and the mean score (+/- standard deviation [SD]) was 12.43 +/- 2.645. After postintervention, an average level of knowledge was found to be improved regarding the ill effect of alcohol use, and the mean (+/- SD) knowledge level score was 19.60 +/- 2.599. Discussion: The findings of this study showed that after psychosocial intervention among the experimental group, the knowledge level for minimizing alcohol consumption increased significantly. The participants reported abstinence from alcohol consumption in the experimental group after intervention. Conclusions: The salient findings from this study can be utilized to develop and implement effective psychosocial prevention strategies to tackle alcohol use in various parts of India. Further research is warranted to replicate the findings of the present study.