Alcohol-related services: Prevention, secondary intervention, and treatment preferences of adolescents

Many youth experience alcohol-related problems; however, the majority report that they would not use a prevention program even if they perceived a need. Ninth through 12th grade students (N = 2883) completed Surveys on alcohol use, willingness to use alcohol-related resources, and factors that might influence utilization. Adolescents were categorized into five groups: non-drinkers, recent abstainers, moderate drinkers, heavy drinkers, and problem drinkers. Level of alcohol use was inversely related to intention to use services. Heavy and problem drinkers also evaluated facilitators differently than abstaining and moderate drinking youth. Findings highlight the difficulty of engaging heavier drinking youth with strategies that may be more appealing to non-problematic drinkers. Results have important implications for the development of distinct alcohol prevention and intervention programs, and highlight the value of using multiple Options to increase the likelihood of service utilization by non-drinking and drinking adolescents. (C) 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.