Community Alcohol Education and Prevention Program

The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate an alcohol education program for the inhabitants of region seven, state of Idaho. A questionnaire comprised of multiple choice, and true-false questions, plus an attitude scale was developed to measure changes by way of pre and post testings. The five hypotheses of this study are: That our community and school education program would result in subjects obtaining a higher percentage of correct responses on information items on the post test administration of our questionnaire versus the pre testing. The community and school education program would result in subjects obtaining an attitude rating more in line with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) position on the post test administration of the attitude survey, as compared to their pre test rating. There would be a larger increase in the number of clients who sought out counseling at the Center for problems related to alcoholism during our six month test period, as compared to the increase experienced during the same six months of the previous year prior to the new program. During the six month test period there would be a larger number of presentations, as requested, to community groups, as compared to the number given during the same six months of the previous year prior to the new program. During the six month test period there would be larger amounts of money received from local contributors (agencies or individuals), as compared to the same six months of the previous year prior to the new program. A frequency count and corresponding percentages were tabulated for each question from the questionnaires received during a 1 percent random sampling of households in the community. Also, an analysis of variance was run to determine if there was a significant difference pre to post on community respondents, or on school students who received an alcohol education presentation in their classrooms. Results indicate no shift in community or school student\u27s attitudes, nor in the community\u27s informational level. Four out of six schools had an increase in the student\u27s informational level, which was significant at the .01 level. Likewise, a class of Licensed Practical Nursing students showed a significant increase