Do school-based prevention programs impact co-occurring alcohol use and psychological distress during adolescence?

Background: Adolescence is a critical period for preventing substance use and mental health concerns, often targeted through separate school-based programs. However, co-occurrence is common and is related to worse outcomes. This study explores prevention effects of leading school-based prevention programs on co-occurring alcohol use and psychological distress.

Methods: Data from two Australian cluster randomized trials involving 8576 students in 97 schools were harmonized for analysis. Students received either health education (control) or one of five prevention programs (e.g. Climate Schools, PreVenture) with assessments at baseline and 6, 12, 24, and 30 or 36 months (from ages ~13-16). Multilevel multinomial regressions were used to predict the relative risk ratios (RRs) of students reporting co-occurring early alcohol use and psychological distress, alcohol use only, distress only, or neither (reference) across programs.

Results: The combined Climate Schools: Alcohol and Cannabis and Climate Schools: Mental Health courses (CSC) as well as the PreVenture program reduced the risk of adolescents reporting co-occurring alcohol use and psychological distress (36 months RR_CSC = 0.37; RR_PreVenture = 0.22). Other evaluated programs (excluding Climate Schools: Mental Health) only appeared effective for reducing the risk of alcohol use that occurred without distress.

Conclusions: Evidence-based programs exist that reduce the risk of early alcohol use with and without co-occurring psychological distress, though preventing psychological distress alone requires further exploration. Prevention programs appear to have different effects depending on whether alcohol use and distress present on their own or together, thus suggesting the need for tailored prevention strategies.