Teaching Teens to Manage Personality Traits May Reduce Problem Drinking
High school programs that teach teens to better manage
their personality traits can help reduce and postpone problem drinking, a
new study suggests.
“Two factors determine problem drinking: personality and peer
pressure,” said study author Dr. Patricia Conrod of King’s College
London’s Institute of Psychiatry. “Teaching young people how to better
manage their personality traits or vulnerabilities helps them make the
right decisions in given situations, whether it is a matter of
overcoming their fears, managing thoughts that make them very emotional,
controlling their compulsions, analyzing objectively the intentions of
others or improving their self-perception.”
In the two-year study, high school staff in London worked with
ninth-grade students, who were divided into two groups. One group
participated in a personality-based intervention program run by school
staff, while the second group received the standard United Kingdom drug
and alcohol curriculum. All of the students’ drinking patterns were
examined.
Students filled out a personality questionnaire to determine their
risk of developing future alcohol dependence. Personality traits
identified with a greater risk of alcohol dependence included
impulsivity, hopelessness, sensation-seeking, or anxiety, Newswise reports.
School staff members trained in the personality-based program
delivered group workshops targeting the different personality profiles.
The workshops taught the teens to better manage their personality
traits. “Our study shows that this mental health approach to alcohol
prevention is much more successful in reducing drinking behavior than
giving teenagers general information on the dangers of alcohol,” Dr.
Conrod said in a news release.
After two years, the study found high-risk students in the
intervention group had a 29 percent reduced risk of drinking, a 43
percent reduced risk of binge drinking, and a 29 percent reduced risk of
problem drinking, compared with high-risk students in the standard drug
and alcohol education programs. The intervention also significantly
slowed the progression to more risky drinking behavior in the high-risk
students over the two years.
The study appears in JAMA Psychiatry.
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