Purpose:
Hazardous alcohol consumption among university students represents a prime health risk for this population. Due to a lack of appropriate German-language (online) prevention programs, an existing U.S.-American program was transferred to the German higher education area and then evaluated.
Method:
For this purpose, both qualitative focus groups and a quantitative evaluation were undertaken. The guided focus groups allowed a further adaptation of the prevention program: An improved frequency–quantity questionnaire for the drinking behavior of German-speaking students was developed, and thresholds for hazardous consumption were included.
Results:
The additional quantitative verification of the adaptation found that 65.9% of the surveyed students found the adapted program suitable for the higher education context and 62.6% stated that every university should provide such a program.
Discussion:
The adaptation process described here made it possible to develop an online prevention program tailored to the lifeworld of students in the German-speaking region.
Research suggests that online interventions preventing risky substance use can improve student health. There is an increasing interest in transferring evidence-based online programs into university health promotion practice. However, little is known about how to best tailor the implementation process to capacities and context of individual universities. The purpose of this study was to assess the level of readiness (capacity) of German universities concerning the implementation of evidence-based online programs for risky substance use prevention employing an adapted Community Readiness Assessment (CRA) and to develop tailored action plans for implementation. The CRA involved 43 semi-structured interviews with key persons at 10 German universities. The interviews addressed five dimensions (knowledge of efforts, leadership, community climate, knowledge of the issue, and resources) at nine possible readiness stages (no awareness—ownership) and additional contextual factors. Overall, readiness for implementing online interventions across universities was rather low. Universities readiness levels ranged between the denial stage with a score of 2.1 and the preplanning stage with a score of 4.4. University-specific readiness was very heterogeneous. On the basis of the results of the CRA, universities received feedback and options for training on how to take the necessary steps to increase readiness and to prepare program implementation. The adapted version of the CRA was well suited to inform future implementation of evidence-based online programs for the prevention of risky substance use at participating universities.
Suchthilfe und Suchtprävention sind zentrale Tätigkeitsfelder für Fachkräfte der Sozialen Arbeit. Das Wissen um Suchtgefährdung und der fachliche Umgang mit missbrauchenden und abhängigen Menschen sind angesichts der Risiko-Klientel in vielen Bereichen der Sozialen Arbeit (z.B. der Wohnungslosenhilfe, Jugendhilfe) wesentlicher Bestandteil des Berufsprofils. Das Buch ist angelegt als systematisches Grundlagenwerk zur Sozialen Arbeit in der Suchthilfe und Suchtprävention. Es entfaltet die Theorie und die relevanten Wissensbestände in enger Ausrichtung auf ihre Bedeutung für die Bewältigung beruflicher Anforderungen und stellt die dafür notwendigen Handlungskonzepte anschaulich vor.