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Biomedical subjects

G J Botvin

Publications and source records attributed to G J Botvin.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Dimensions of assertiveness: differential relationships to substance use in early adolescence.

We tested a multidimensional formulation of assertiveness and substance (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) use in 3 metropolitan-area school samples of adolescents aged 12-14 years. Three studies (N = 675, N = 1,430, and N = 5,545) included inner-city and surburban settings and included White, Black, and Hispanic students. Factor analysis of versions of the Gambrill-Richey Assertion Inventory indicated five independent dimensions of assertive behavior. Multiple regression analysis indicated that a dimension of Substance-specific Assertiveness was inversely associated with substance use, whereas dimensions of Social Assertiveness and Dating Assertiveness were positively associated with substance use. A dimension of General Assertiveness was unrelated to substance use. Interaction effects indicated that relations were stronger for girls for Substance and Social Assertiveness and for boys for Dating Assertiveness. Implications of the findings for models of assertive behavior and for design of primary prevention programs are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Psychosocial approaches to substance abuse prevention: theoretical foundations and empirical findings.

Substance abuse continues to be a major public health problem and a central policy issue throughout the United States. Interventions developed to reduce or prevent substance use have taken many forms including school-based education programs, mass media campaigns, and community-based movements. The extant research literature indicates that these interventions have frequently increased knowledge and awareness, and they have occasionally had an impact on attitudes and other substance use-related variables. However, rarely have any of these interventions had a measurable impact on actual substance use. A major exception is a class of school-based primary-prevention approaches that focus on the key psychosocial factors promoting adolescent substance use. These approaches include either resistance skills training alone or in combination with broader competence-enhancement interventions. The development of these intervention approaches and the evidence supporting their efficacy is an encouraging advance in a field replete with failures. Still, it is important to recognize the limitations of these approaches in their current form and the need to develop more comprehensive approaches combining school-based interventions with those impacting on the family, social institutions, and the larger community.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Smokeless tobacco use among adolescents: correlates and concurrent predictors.

Seventh grade students (N = 1539) from three regions of New York State were surveyed to determine the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use and its relationship to seven background variables, 13 substance use variables, and 19 psychosocial variables. Significant correlations with smokeless tobacco use were found within each of these variable domains. Concurrent predictors for each domain were determined using logistic regression analysis. The resulting three models were combined in a stepwise fashion in an effort to determine the most complete prediction model. The final model indicated that individuals at the highest risk for using smokeless tobacco were rural males who had smoked more than four cigarettes in their lifetime, were more heavily involved with alcohol, had a lower degree of assertiveness and social anxiety, and had reported eating as a coping response. Implications for prevention are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Substance abuse prevention research: recent developments and future directions.

Substance abuse continues to be one of the most serious problems facing communities throughout the United States. Existing school-based prevention programs have produced disappointing results when carefully evaluated. However, promising research has been conducted during the past eight years with two new prevention models that focus on the psychosocial factors believed to promote substance abuse. One, the social influence model, is designed to increase adolescents' ability to resist social influences to smoke, drink, or use drugs. The other model, though also designed to increase adolescents' resistance to pro-substance use social influences, focuses primary attention on the development of an array of cognitive-behavioral personal and social skills. More than 20 research studies testing programs based on these two prevention models have demonstrated significant reductions in substance use. Though future research is clearly needed, the results of these studies provide considerable cause for optimism.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Personal and social skills training: cognitive-behavioral approaches to substance abuse prevention.

A total of nine evaluation studies have been conducted with four prevention models which focus on teaching generic personal and social skills. All of these approaches have produced demonstrable effects for one or more substance use behaviors, and the magnitude of these effects generally appears to be large. Although methodological problems may exist in some of these studies, the magnitude of the effects obtained and their consistency across studies provide strong support for the efficacy of these approaches. Finally, a major strength of the research conducted in this area is that all of these studies have assessed the impact of the prevention programs on presumed mediating variables, and have been able to demonstrate effects on a number of these variables consistent with the behavioral results. Thus, while these studies collectively provide evidence for the effectiveness of generic personal and social skills training substance abuse prevention models, only preliminary data are available concerning how and why these programs work.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

A cognitive-behavioral approach to substance abuse prevention.

The effectiveness of a 20 session cognitive-behavioral approach to substance abuse prevention was tested on seventh grade students (n = 1,311) from 10 suburban New York junior high schools. The prevention strategy attempted to reduce intrapersonal pressure to smoke, drink excessively, or use marijuana by fostering the development of general life skills as well as teaching students tactics for resisting direct interpersonal pressure to use these substances. Additionally, this study was designed to compare the relative effectiveness of this type of prevention program when implemented by either older peer leaders or regular classroom teachers. Results indicated that the prevention program had a significant impact on cigarette smoking, excessive drinking, and marijuana use when implemented by peer leaders. Furthermore, significant changes were also evident with respect to selected cognitive, attitudinal, and personality predisposing variables in a direction consistent with non-substance use. These results provide further support for the efficacy of a broad-spectrum smoking prevention strategy and tentative support for its applicability to the prevention of other forms of substance abuse.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Prevention of alcohol misuse through the development of personal and social competence: a pilot study.

Seventh graders (N = 239) from two New York City junior high schools were involved in a 9-month study testing the efficacy of a broad-spectrum approach to prevention of alcohol misuse. The two schools were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. The seventh graders in the treatment school received a 20-session program targeted at the major cognitive, attitudinal, social and personality factors believed to promote the early stages of alcohol misuse. The program contained material on decision making, coping with anxiety, general social skills and assertiveness (including techniques for resisting peer pressure to drink) as well as information about the short- and long-term consequences of alcohol misuse. Complete pretest, posttest 1 and posttest 2 data were collected from 167 students (89 women). A significantly greater proportion of the students in the experimental group reported less frequent drinking (p less than .02), less drinking per occasion (p less than .04), and less frequent episodes of drunkenness (p less than .01) than the students in the control group.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

The effects of scheduling format and booster sessions on a broad-spectrum psychosocial approach to smoking prevention.

The effectiveness of a fifteen session psychosocial smoking prevention strategy was tested on 902 seventh graders from seven junior high schools in suburban New York over 2 years. The prevention program was implemented by regular classroom teachers and consisted of a cognitive component dealing with the immediate consequences of cigarette smoking, a decision-making component, a relaxation-training component, a social skills training component, and a self-improvement component. In addition to testing the overall effectiveness of this approach, the relative efficacy of two different scheduling formats was compared and the extent to which "booster" sessions conducted during the year after completion of the program helped to maintain reductions in new smoking was also examined. Results indicated that the prevention program was able to reduce new cigarette smoking by 50% at the end of the first year and by 55% at the end of the second year for the intensive format condition. New regular cigarette smoking was reduced by 87% in the second year for the students in the booster condition. Significant changes consistent with nonsmoking were also evident on several cognitive, attitudinal, and personality variables.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Prevention of adolescent substance abuse through the development of personal and social competence.

The initiation of substance use typically begins during adolescence and appears to be the result of the complex interplay of social, personality, cognitive, attitudinal, behavioral, and developmental factors. Traditional smoking, alcohol, and drug education programs have attempted to increase students' knowledge of the risks associated with using these substances in the hope that this would deter use. Other programs have attempted to enrich the personal and social development of students through what has been referred to as "affective" education. Unfortunately, the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the substance abuse prevention literature is that few of these programs have demonstrated any degree of success in terms of the actual prevention of substance use/abuse. Traditional educational approaches to substance abuse prevention appear to be inadequate because they are based on faulty assumptions and are too narrow in their focus. The "affective" education approaches, on the other hand, appear to have placed too little emphasis on the acquisition of the kind of skills that are likely to increase general personal competence and enable students to cope with the various interpersonal and intrapersonal pressures to begin using tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. From the perspective of social learning theory (Bandura 1977) and problem behavior theory (Jessor and Jessor 1977), substance use is conceptualized as a socially learned, purposive, and functional behavior which is the result of the interplay of social (environmental) and personal factors. One potentially effective approach to substance abuse prevention might involve enhancing general personal competence and teaching adolescents the kind of problem-specific skills and knowledge which will increase their ability to resist the various forms of pro-substance-use social pressure. Brief reviews of the social skills training literature and the literature related to techniques for coping with anxiety not only provide evidence for the feasibility of teaching these kinds of skills, but also provide guidelines concerning the most effective approaches to use. Similarly, several of the most successful smoking prevention programs have included components designed to increase adolescents' ability to resist the various pro-use social pressures, particularly pressure from their peers. Our own research has involved testing a broad-spectrum prevention strategy which focuses both on the enhancement of personal competence through the development of basic "life skills" and the acquisition of problem-specific skills and knowledge designed to increase adolescents' ability to resist the various forms of social pressure to engage in the use of one or more substances.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1980

A comprehensive school-based smoking prevention program.

Eighth, ninth and tenth graders (N = 281) from two schools in suburban New York participated in a study to test the efficacy of a 10-session comprehensive psychosocial smoking prevention program. Schools were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. All students were given a pretest, posttest and three-month follow-up which assessed smoking behavior as well as knowledge and personality variables. There were significantly fewer new "smokers" in the experimental school than in the control school at both the initial posttest (p less than .01) and the three-month followup (p less than .05) along with significantly greater changes on some of the knowledge and personality variables. Overall, these results support the use of a smoking prevention strategy that focuses on the main psychosocial factors promoting the onset of cigarette smoking by teaching students basic coping skills.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1979

Reducing adolescent obesity through a school health program.

The feasibility and effectiveness of conducting a school-based multi-component behavioral weight reduction program was tested on 119 overweight junior high school students. Four schools in the metropolitan New York area were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control conditions. After participating in a school-wide health-profile screening, students in the experimental group were invited to participate in a ten-session weight reduction program that included behavior modification, nutrition education, and exercise management. Comparison of the experimental and control groups with respect to changes on weight and triceps skinfold measures indicated significant differences between the two groups. Although the long-term effectiveness of the weight reduction program cannot be determined, the present study clearly demonstrates the short-term effectiveness and feasibility of conducting such a program in a school setting.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Validation of students' self-reported cigarette smoking status with plasma cotinine levels.

Plasma cotinine levels were measured in 137 students (ages 14 to 17 years), as an independent validation of self-reported cigarette smoking status. Ninety-five per cent of the students who reported daily cigarette smoking had detectable cotinine levels. In contract, only 2 per cent of students who reported that they never smoke cigarettes had detectable levels of plasma cotinine. Results suggest that adolescents can report accurately on their smoking status if sufficient assurance of confidentiality is stressed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

The efficacy of peer modeling and social conflict in the acquisition of conservation.

Significant gains in conservation of number, amount, mass, and weight were made by 53 nonconservers (age 6-9) who either simply observed conserver's performance on mass and weight problems or argued with conservers in a social conflict situation about these problems. There were no significant differences in conservation performance between the modeling and social conflict treatments. It was suggested that the social conflict effect could be attributed to modeling effects.

Age Factors↗