According to charity Action on Addiction, around six in every 10 11-15-year-olds in England say they drink, while around 5,000 teenagers are admitted to UK hospitals for alcohol-related problems every year.
Scientists from King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry worked in partnership with Canadian institutions The University of Montreal and Sainte-Justine University Hospital Centre to gather information about the effectiveness of counselling on ‘high risk’ teen drinkers.
2000 ‘high risk’ young people suffering from emotional or behavioural problems were selected from 21 schools around London and monitored for two years. All volunteers were aged between 13 and 14 and had certain personality traits in common, including high levels of anxiety, low-moods and impulsivity.
11 schools provided training programmes to support 700 of these high-risk teens. School staff taught students how to manage their feelings and impulses with psychological strategies.
After two years, the researchers found that high risk teenagers who had received the counselling support programme were 29% less likely to drink than students who hadn’t received counselling, and 43% less likely to binge drink.
Patricia Conrod, who led the study, said students who attended schools that ran the programmes but did not participate in the programmes themselves, still reaped the benefits.
“This ‘herd effect’ is very important as it suggests that the benefits of mental health interventions on drinking behaviour also extend to the general population, possibly by reducing the number of drinking occasions young people are exposed to in early adolescence,” she explained.
Drinking from a young age increases the risk of health problems and can even lead to alcoholism, a problem which can spiral out into all areas of life. Some counsellors specialise in treating alcohol abuse. To find out more, please visit our page about alcoholism.
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