Nicotine, alcohol and marijuana are the most widely used substances among adolescents. These substances, however, can have serious negative consequences for brain development, making substance use among adolescents a major public health issue.

New research, published in The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, looks at how practice nurses in primary care settings can address the issue of substance use among adolescents with evidence-based interventions.

Identifying and treating substance use in adolescence can reduce long term harm and risk of later life dependency.

The article describes the...

The term ‘baby boomer’ refers to those born during 1946-1964. In the UK, they account for around 25% of the population.

Studies have found that baby boomers indulge in more dangerous drinking behaviour than younger generations. For example, between 1992-2006, alcohol consumption among baby boomers (aged 45-64) increased by 85%, compared to 50% for over 65s and 24% for those aged 16-24.

Similar studies report increased alcohol-related deaths and a higher prevalence of alcohol-related hospital admittances among baby bombers. Their drug usage between 1993-2007 has also risen, and there is...

Healthcare and allied health professionals — including family physicians, nurses, addiction specialists, psychologists and social workers — use alcohol screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT) to help individuals manage their alcohol consumption. The resources include links to evidence-informed guidance and tools.

Sections are divided into:

• Alcohol and Risk
• Screening 
• Brief Intervention
• Treatment

It is well recognised that substance use during pregnancy can harm the developing foetus, leading to potential cognitive dysfunction and mental and behavioural difficulties in later life.

Longitudinal studies, which track participants over an extended amount of time, allow researchers to examine specific factors that may influence the growth and development of an individual. 

Despite the frequent co-occurrence of prenatal alcohol exposure and instances of childhood maltreatment, there has been little research investigating the complicated relationship between the factors and potential long...

This mouse study describes the structural differences in brains of mice who are dependent on alcohol compared to those who are not. Rather than looking at function of specific sections of the brain, the study looked at the overall structure of the brain to understand differences in a new way.

The article is open access - full article available via the link

EFFECTIVENESS OF SCREENING AND BRIEF INTERVENTIONS

First instalment of a fortnightly course on the evidence for alcohol treatment and related topics. This instalment selects, explains and explores seminal and key research on the effectiveness of screening and brief interventions, intended to reduce harm across a population of heavy but not dependent drinkers. Highlights the SIPS studies, the most significant to date in the UK, and helps develop evidence-informed understandings of four key questions:

Do the SIPS results mean, ‘Just do the minimum’?
How ‘real world’ are supposedly real-world...

THE SALIS COLLECTION is a full-text, digital lending library of literature in the field of alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, and addictions. “Other drugs” refers to marijuana, heroin, LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids etc. International and interdisciplinary in scope, the collection includes seminal academic and popular press books, reports, documents, grey literature, and other text resources such as organization newsletters. With breadth and depth, encompassing mainly the 20th and 21st centuries, it addresses drug use and misuse, legal and illegal drugs, substance use disorders and...

Researchers have continuously debated the link between anxiety and alcohol use. However, despite the previous examination of the direction and strength of the association, the form of the relationship remains unclear.

A recent systematic review, published in the Journal of Addiction, has sought to uncover some of the unanswered questions about child and adolescent anxiety and later alcohol use outcomes.

All the articles used in the review were English language publications, used human participants. They examined anxiety exposure (predictor variable) in childhood or adolescence and alcohol...

The adverse impact of alcohol consumption include the negative consequences of drinking on individuals other than the drinkers themselves, including both health and social problems.  Alcohol’s harm to others (HTO) is an interactional occurrence at the level of individuals and their relationships and is determined from the perspective of those affected by the drinker rather than from the perspective of the drinker or the society. The major social relationships to drinkers involve four main sets of roles: family, friend, co-worker and stranger.

In 2011, WHO, the Thailand Health Promotion...

The need to reduce alcohol-related harms has been recognized by the 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (adopted by the Sixty-third World Health Assembly), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases 2013-2020, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Plan of Action to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol.

The amount and frequency of alcohol consumed by an individual are determined, in large part, by the affordability of alcoholic beverages.

Th...