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This article summarizes a symposium held at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was prepared by the conference co-organizers/co-chairs with substantial input from each of the symposium participants. Increasingly, alcohol abuse interventions focus on preventing alcohol problems or intervening early before risky drinking behavior becomes ingrained. Universal prevention programs have produced no or only modest effects on the drinking behavior of youths. Although some existing targeted prevention programs have proved effective, they have not tapped the full range of potential intervention targets, such as the underlying motivations for alcohol misuse in youths who are at greatest risk. The set of papers presented in this symposium outline exciting new developments in the field of targeted prevention and early intervention programs for adolescent drinking problems, presented by an international panel of researchers. These developments include attention to making interventions relevant to adolescents' lives, focus on personality and motivational factors underlying alcohol misuse, and combining existing cognitive behavioral programs with expectancy challenge and motivational interviewing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The psychomotor stimulant theory of addiction posits that sensitivity to the positively rewarding properties of alcohol puts certain individuals at higher risk for alcohol abuse. A valid and reliable index of overactivation in the reward system has been a heightened baseline heart rate (HR) increase on the ascending limb of the blood alcohol curve. The main goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between this HR response and a questionnaire measuring sensitivity to reward and sensitivity to punishment. Additional goals included looking at (1). the association between a high HR response and various personality traits (hopelessness/introversion, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation-seeking) and (2). the relationship between these personality traits and stimulant use. METHODS: A total of 18 low- and 19 high-HR responders completed the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire (SPSRQ), the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale (SURPS), and a modified version of the Addiction Severity Index. RESULTS: High-HR responders obtained significantly higher scores than low-HR responders on the sensitivity to reward scale of the SPSRQ, as well as increased sensation-seeking scores on the SURPS. High-HR responders were not at significantly higher risk of having used stimulants, but stimulant use was associated with higher impulsivity scores on the SURPS. CONCLUSIONS: Novelty/sensation-seeking is among the personality traits that have been linked to heavy alcohol use. This study suggests that reward sensitivity might mediate the relationship between this personality profile and drinking behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This trial examined the efficacy of teacher-delivered personality-targeted interventions for alcohol-misuse over a 6-month period.Method: This randomized controlled trial randomly allocated participating schools to intervention (n = 11) or control (n = 7) conditions. A total of 2,506 (mean age, 13.7 years) were assessed for elevated levels of personality risk factors for substance misuse: sensation-seeking, impulsivity, anxiety sensitivity, and hopelessness. Six hundred ninety-six adolescents were invited to participate in teacher-delivered personality-targeted interventions, and 463 were assigned to the nontreatment condition. Primary outcomes were drinking, binge-drinking status, quantity by frequency of alcohol use, and drinking-related problems.Results: School delivery of the personality-targeted intervention program was associated with significantly lower drinking rates in high-risk students at 6-month follow-up (odds ratio, 0.6), indicating a 40% decreased risk of alcohol consumption in the intervention group. Receiving an intervention also predicted significantly lower binge-drinking rates in students who reported alcohol use at baseline (odds ratio, 0.45), indicating a 55% decreased risk of binge-drinking in this group compared with controls. In addition, high-risk intervention-school students reported lower quantity by frequency of alcohol use (beta = -.18) and drinking-related problems (beta = -.15) compared with the nontreatment group at follow-up.Conclusion: This trial replicates previous studies reporting the efficacy of personality-targeted interventions and demonstrates that targeted interventions can be successfully delivered by teachers, suggesting potential for this approach as a sustainable school-based prevention model. Clinical trial registration information-Personality-Targeted Interventions for Adolescent Alcohol Misuse, URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, unique identifier: NCT00344474. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Screen time and self-esteem have been shown to be important correlates of eating disorders in adolescence. However, there is an absence of longitudinal studies that distinguish between time-varying factors, accounting for parallel developmental changes and common underlying vulnerability., Design: A total of 3,801 adolescents were administered self-report measures, annually, over the course of 5 years. The association of screen time (social media use, television watching, video gaming) on eating related symptoms was analyzed using a longitudinal Bayesian multilevel path analysis framework. Self-esteem was examined as a mediating factor in this model. This study investigated direct and indirect associations at between-person, concurrent within-person, and lagged-within-person levels, while controlling for gender., Results: The findings revealed that all types of screen time exposure were significantly associated with eating related symptoms at between and within-person levels. A significant association at the lagged-within person level was only revealed for social media use. Self-esteem was found to be a significant mediating factor between screen time and eating related symptoms., Conclusion: An increase in social media use one year was associated with increased of eating related symptoms two years later through lower self-esteem. Implications for prevention are discussed.

Structural neuroimaging data have been used to compute an estimate of the biological age of the brain (brain-age) which has been associated with other biologically and behaviorally meaningful measures of brain development and aging. The ongoing research interest in brain-age has highlighted the need for robust and publicly available brain-age models pre-trained on data from large samples of healthy individuals. To address this need we have previously released a developmental brain-age model. Here we expand this work to develop, empirically validate, and disseminate a pre-trained brain-age model to cover most of the human lifespan. To achieve this, we selected the best-performing model after systematically examining the impact of seven site harmonization strategies, age range, and sample size on brain-age prediction in a discovery sample of brain morphometric measures from 35,683 healthy individuals (age range: 5-90 years; 53.59% female). The pre-trained models were tested for cross-dataset generalizability in an independent sample comprising 2101 healthy individuals (age range: 8-80 years; 55.35% female) and for longitudinal consistency in a further sample comprising 377 healthy individuals (age range: 9-25 years; 49.87% female). This empirical examination yielded the following findings: (1) the accuracy of age prediction from morphometry data was higher when no site harmonization was applied; (2) dividing the discovery sample into two age-bins (5-40 and 40-90 years) provided a better balance between model accuracy and explained age variance than other alternatives; (3) model accuracy for brain-age prediction plateaued at a sample size exceeding 1600 participants. These findings have been incorporated into CentileBrain (https://centilebrain.org/#/brainAGE2), an open-science, web-based platform for individualized neuroimaging metrics., (© 2024 The Author(s). Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: This study evaluated the efficacy of the selective personality-targeted PreVenture program in reducing cannabis and stimulant use over a 7-year period spanning adolescence and early adulthood., Methods: A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted in 14 Australian schools. Schools were randomized to PreVenture, a brief personality-targeted selective intervention, comprising two 90-minute facilitator-led sessions delivered one week apart, or a control group (health education as usual). Only students who scored highly on one of four personality traits (anxiety sensitivity, negative thinking, impulsivity, sensation seeking) were included. Students completed online self-report questionnaires between 2012 and 2019: at baseline; post-intervention; 1-, 2-, 3-, 5.5- and 7-years post-baseline. Outcomes were past 6-months cannabis use, stimulant use (MDMA, methamphetamine or amphetamine) and cannabis-related harms., Results: The sample comprised 438 adolescents (M age =13.4 years; SD=0.47) at baseline. Retention ranged from 51% to 79% over the 7-years. Compared to controls, the PreVenture group had significantly reduced odds of annual cannabis-related harms (OR=0.78, 95% CI=0.65-0.92). However, there were no significant group differences in the growth of cannabis use (OR=0.84, 95% CI=0.69-1.02) or stimulant use (OR=1.07, 95% CI=0.91-1.25) over the 7-year period., Conclusions: PreVenture was effective in slowing the growth of cannabis-related harms over time, however owing to missing data over the 7-year trial, replication trials may be warranted to better understand the impact of the PreVenture intervention on cannabis and stimulant use among young Australians. Alternative implementation strategies, such as delivering the intervention in later adolescence and/or providing booster sessions, may be beneficial., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest PC is the developer of the PreVenture program which is distributed not for profit to maximize social well-being., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Addressing aggressive behavior in adolescence is a key step toward preventing violence and associated social and economic costs in adulthood. This study examined the secondary effects of the personality-targeted substance use preventive program Preventure on aggressive behavior from ages 13 to 20., Methods: In total, 339 young people from nine independent schools ( M age = 13.03 years, s.d. = 0.47, range = 12-15) who rated highly on one of the four personality traits associated with increased substance use and other emotional/behavioral symptoms (i.e. impulsivity, anxiety sensitivity, sensation seeking, and negative thinking) were included in the analyses ( n = 145 in Preventure, n = 194 in control). Self-report assessments were administered at baseline and follow-up (6 months, 1, 2, 3, 5.5, and 7 years). Overall aggression and subtypes of aggressive behaviors (proactive, reactive) were examined using multilevel mixed-effects analysis accounting for school-level clustering., Results: Across the 7-year follow-up period, the average yearly reduction in the frequency of aggressive behaviors ( b = -0.42; 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.64 to -0.20; p < 0.001), reactive aggression ( b = -0.22; 95% CI 0.35 to -0.10; p = 0.001), and proactive aggression ( b = -0.14; 95% CI -0.23 to -0.05; p = 0.002) was greater for the Preventure group compared to the control group., Conclusions: The study suggests a brief personality-targeted intervention may have long-term impacts on aggression among young people; however, this interpretation is limited by imbalance of sex ratios between study groups.

Many Canadian emerging adults (ages 18-25 years) use cannabis, with 60 % of past-three-month users experiencing one or more cannabis-related problems (i.e., adverse consequences of use). While psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and cannabis problems overlap, little is known about the mechanisms explaining this link. One hypothesis is that PLEs are distressing and give rise to anxiety, with which emerging adults attempt to cope through increased cannabis use, in turn increasing their risk for cannabis-related problems. We tested a chained-mediational model to determine if anxiety and coping-with-anxiety motives for cannabis use sequentially mediated the link between PLEs and cannabis problems in emerging adult undergraduates; a conditional process model tested for moderation by sex. Emerging adult cannabis users (N = 413; mean [SD] age = 19.1 [1.5] years; 71.9 % female) from five Canadian universities provided cross-sectional, self-report survey data in fall 2021. Validated measures of PLEs, anxiety, cannabis coping-with-anxiety motives, and cannabis-related problems were administered. Path analyses supported the hypothesized chained mediational indirect effect (b = 0.027, 95 % bootstrap CI [0.012, 0.050]). No direct effect was found (p =.698), suggesting that the PLEs-to-cannabis problems association is fully explained by anxiety and cannabis coping-with-anxiety motives. Inconsistent with hypotheses, mediation did not depend on sex (95 % CIs crossed zero); therefore, anxiety and cannabis coping-with-anxiety motives explain the link between PLEs and cannabis problems in emerging adults regardless of their sex. Results highlight anxiety and cannabis coping-with-anxiety motives as potentially important intervention targets in cannabis-using emerging adults with PLEs, possibly preventing the development/worsening of cannabis-related problems., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Neuroscience has contributed to uncover the mechanisms underpinning substance use disorders (SUD). The next frontier is to leverage these mechanisms as active targets to create more effective interventions for SUD treatment and prevention. Recent large-scale cohort studies from early childhood are generating multiple levels of neuroscience-based information with the potential to inform the development and refinement of future preventive strategies. However, there are still no available well-recognized frameworks to guide the integration of these multi-level datasets into prevention interventions. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) provides a neuroscience-based multi-system framework that is well suited to facilitate translation of neurobiological mechanisms into behavioral domains amenable to preventative interventions. We propose a novel RDoC-based framework for prevention science and adapted the framework for the existing preventive interventions. From a systematic review of randomized controlled trials using a person-centered drug/alcohol preventive approach for adolescents, we identified 22 unique preventive interventions. By teasing apart these 22 interventions into the RDoC domains, we proposed distinct neurocognitive trajectories which have been recognized as precursors or risk factors for SUDs, to be targeted, engaged and modified for effective addiction prevention., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest The authors have reported no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Alcohol-induced injury is one of the leading causes of preventable morbidity and mortality. We investigated the relationship between impulsive personality and physical injury (e.g. falls, sports), and whether peak drinking quantity specifically, and/or risky behaviour more generally, mediates the relationship between impulsivity and injury in undergraduates., Method: We used data from the winter 2021 UniVenture survey with 1316 first- and second-year undergraduate students aged 18-25 years (79.5% female) from five Canadian Universities. Students completed an online survey regarding their demographics, personality, alcohol use, risky behaviours, and injury experiences. Impulsivity was measured with the substance use risk profile scale, past 30-day peak alcohol use with the quantity-frequency-peak Alcohol Use Index, general risky behaviour with the risky behaviour questionnaire, and past 6-month injury experience with the World Health Organization's (2017) injury measurement questionnaire., Results: Of 1316 total participants, 12.9% (n = 170) reported having sustained a physical injury in the past 6 months. Mean impulsivity, peak drinking quantity, and risky behaviour scores were significantly higher among those who reported vs. did not report injury. Impulsivity and peak drinking quantity, but not general risky behaviour, predicted injury in a multi-level generalized mixed model. Mediation analyses supported impulsivity as both a direct predictor of physical injury and an indirect predictor through increased peak drinking (both p < .05), but not through general risky behaviour., Conclusion: Results imply emerging adults with impulsive tendencies should be identified for selective injury prevention programs and suggest targeting their heavy drinking to decrease their risk for physical injury., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Objective: Cannabis is commonly used by Canadian emerging adults (ages 18-25 years), many of whom attend post-secondary institutions. Frequent cannabis use is linked with psychotic-like experiences (PLEs); however, the exact nature of this association remains unclear. Anxiety symptoms may mediate this association, as they are prevalent in emerging adults and have been independently linked with both cannabis use and PLEs. Past work found that anxiety mediated the association between cannabis use frequency and attenuated positive psychotic symptoms (further along the psychosis continuum than PLEs), however this research had yet to be validated in the Canadian population, and trait rather than state anxiety (frequency of anxiety symptoms) was studied. Thus, our primary objective was to examine if anxiety symptoms mediated the association between cannabis use frequency and PLEs in Canadian emerging adult undergraduates. Despite known sex differences in cannabis use, expression of anxiety, and PLEs, past work did not evaluate the potential impact of biological sex on the anxiety-mediated model, and thus is the secondary objective of the present study., Methods: 1,266 first-/second-year emerging adult undergraduates from five Canadian universities provided cross-sectional, self-report survey data in fall 2021 semester. Validated measures of cannabis use frequency, anxiety, and PLEs were administered., Results: Path analyses supported mediation from cannabis use to PLEs through anxiety ( b   =  0.07, P  < 0.001, 95% bootstrap CI [0.03, 0.10]). No direct effect was found ( P   =  0.457), suggesting that the cannabis-to-PLEs association was mediated by anxiety. Mediation did not depend on biological sex (i.e., bootstrapped 95% CIs crossed zero)., Conclusions: Anxiety symptoms mediated the association between cannabis use and PLEs in emerging adults regardless of their biological sex. Assuming replication in prospective research, results highlight anxiety as an important intervention target in frequent cannabis-using emerging adults, to potentially prevent development/worsening of PLEs, and in turn psychotic illness., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study aimed to examine the effect of a personality-targeted prevention program (Preventure) on trajectories of general and specific dimensions of psychopathology from early- to mid-adolescence. Australian adolescents (N = 2190) from 26 schools participated in a cluster randomized controlled substance use prevention trial. This study compared schools allocated to deliver Preventure (n = 13 schools; n = 466 students; M age  = 13.42 years), a personality-targeted selective intervention, with a control group (n = 7 schools; n = 235 students, M age  = 13.47 years). All participants were assessed for psychopathology symptoms at baseline, 6-, 12-, 24- and 36-months post-baseline. Outcomes were a general psychopathology factor and four specific factors: fear, distress, alcohol use/harms and conduct/inattention), extracted from a higher-order model. Participants who screened as 'high-risk' on at least one of four personality traits (negative thinking, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity and sensation seeking) were included in intention-to-treat analyses. Intervention effects were examined using multi-level mixed models accounting for school-level clustering. Among high-risk adolescents, growth in general psychopathology was slower in the Preventure group compared to the control group (b = -0.07, p = 0.038) across the three years. After controlling for effects on general psychopathology, there were no significant, additional effects on the lower order factors. This study provides evidence for the effectiveness of a selective personality-targeted intervention in altering trajectories of general psychopathology during adolescence. This finding represents impacts on multiple symptom domains and highlights the potential for general psychopathology as an intervention target., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: One of the authors, Patricia J Conrod, is a developer of the Preventure program. Preventure is distributed not for profit. Prof Newton and Teesson are directors of CLIMATESchools PTY LTD a company established to distribute education resources to schools. The other authors do not have any conflicts of interests to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Bullying victimization is common in adolescence and has been associated with a broad variety of psychopathology and alcohol use. The present study assessed time-varying associations between bullying victimization and alcohol use through internalizing and externalizing symptoms and whether this indirect association throughout time is moderated by personality. This 5-year longitudinal study (3,800 grade 7 adolescents) used Bayesian multilevel moderated mediation models: independent variable was bullying victimization; moderators were four personality dimensions (anxiety sensitivity, hopelessness, impulsivity, and sensation seeking); internalizing symptoms (anxiety, depressive symptoms) and externalizing symptoms (conduct, hyperactivity problems) were the mediators; and alcohol use, the outcome. Results indicated significant between, within, and lagged effects on alcohol use through internalizing and externalizing symptoms. There were significant between and within effects on alcohol use through internalizing symptoms for adolescents with high anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness, and significant between, within, and lagged effects on alcohol use through externalizing symptoms for adolescents with high impulsivity and sensation seeking. These findings implicate two risk pathways that account for how bullying victimization enhances alcohol use risk and emphasize the importance of personality profiles that can shape the immediate and long-term consequences of victimization.

Background: The Four Factor Personality Vulnerability model identifies four specific personality traits (e.g., sensation seeking [SS], impulsivity [IMP], anxiety sensitivity [AS], and hopelessness [HOP]) as implicated in substance use behaviors, motives for substance use, and co-occurring psychiatric conditions. Although the relationship between these traits and polysubstance use in opioid agonist therapy (OAT) clients has been investigated quantitatively, no study has examined the qualitative expression of each trait using clients' voice., Method: Nineteen Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) clients (68.4% male, 84.2% white, mean age[SD] = 42.71 [10.18]) scoring high on one of the four personality traits measured by the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale [SURPS] completed a semi-structured qualitative interview designed to explore their lived experience of their respective trait. Thematic analysis was used to derive themes, which were further quantified using content analysis., Results: Themes emerging from interviews reflected (1) internalizing and externalizing symptoms, (2) adversity experiences, and (3) polysubstance use. Internalizing symptoms subthemes included symptoms of anxiety, fear, stress, depression, and avoidance coping. Externalizing subthemes included anger, disinhibited cognitions, and anti-social and risk-taking behaviors. Adverse experiences subthemes included poor health, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, trauma, and conflict. Finally, polysubstance use subthemes include substance types, methods of use, and motives. Differences emerged between personality profiles in the relative endorsement of various subthemes, including those pertaining to polysubstance use, that were largely as theoretically expected., Conclusion: Personality is associated with unique cognitive, affective, and behavioral lived experiences, suggesting that personality may be a novel intervention target in adjunctive psychosocial treatment for those undergoing OAT., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Mahu, Conrod, Barrett, Sako, Swansburg and Stewart.)

Background: It has not yet been determined if the commonly reported cannabis-psychosis association is limited to individuals with pre-existing genetic risk for psychotic disorders., Methods: We examined whether the relationship between polygenic risk score for schizophrenia (PRS-Sz) and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), as measured by the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences-42 (CAPE-42) questionnaire, is mediated or moderated by lifetime cannabis use at 16 years of age in 1740 of the individuals of the European IMAGEN cohort. Secondary analysis examined the relationships between lifetime cannabis use, PRS-Sz and the various sub-scales of the CAPE-42. Sensitivity analyses including covariates, including a PRS for cannabis use, were conducted and results were replicated using data from 1223 individuals in the Dutch Utrecht cannabis cohort., Results: PRS-Sz significantly predicted cannabis use ( p = 0.027) and PLE ( p = 0.004) in the IMAGEN cohort. In the full model, considering PRS-Sz and covariates, cannabis use was also significantly associated with PLE in IMAGEN ( p = 0.007). Results remained consistent in the Utrecht cohort and through sensitivity analyses. Nevertheless, there was no evidence of a mediation or moderation effects., Conclusions: These results suggest that cannabis use remains a risk factor for PLEs, over and above genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia. This research does not support the notion that the cannabis-psychosis link is limited to individuals who are genetically predisposed to psychosis and suggests a need for research focusing on cannabis-related processes in psychosis that cannot be explained by genetic vulnerability.

Background: Peer victimization (PV) is associated with alterations in neural responses in regions subserving emotional regulatory processes and with increased risk of psychopathology during adolescence. The present study examined the longitudinal mediating effects of resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between adolescent PV and subsequent internalizing (depression and anxiety), and externalizing (conduct and hyperactivity/inattention) symptoms., Methods: 151 adolescents (baseline mean age 12-14; 54% males) were assessed and imaged three times during a five-year period. We focused on rsFC of a priori determined Regions-of-Interest (ROIs) guided by the literature (i.e., amygdala, anterior and posterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and medial prefrontal cortex). Multilevel mediation (MLM) analyses simultaneously examined the between-person, concurrent within-person, and lagged within-person associations between PV and internalizing/externalizing symptoms through changes in couplings of the amygdala with the other four ROIs. All models controlled for the effects of self-reported childhood maltreatment and sex differences., Results: An increased rsFC of the amygdala-posterior insula significantly mediated the lagged within-person association of PV and internalizing symptoms (β = 0.144; 95% CI [0.018, 0.332]). This effect was significant regardless of childhood maltreatment, concurrent externalizing symptoms, and sex differences. The rsFC did not mediate the relationship between PV and externalizing symptoms., Conclusions: Results of this study suggest that adolescent PV may lead to long-lasting maladaptive neural communication between emotional response and sensory perception of pain (i.e., bottom-up emotion regulation) and that these neural responses may serve as unique markers for increased internalizing symptoms that appear in later adolescence in peer-victimized youth. These findings have implications for interventions targeting internalizing symptoms in victimized adolescents., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Edalati, Afzali, Spinney, Bourque, Dagher and Conrod.)

Background: In accordance with continuum and cognitive behaviour models of psychosis, cognitive biases precede the onset and the maintenance of positive symptoms. The Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS), a self-report measure, was developed to explore the prevalence of specific cognitive biases. This study aims to validate the French version of this instrument., Methods: We first translated the English version of the DACOBS into French. Then, using a sample of 213 French speaking young adults (mean age = 20.54, SD = 1.65; 83% females), we examined the factor structure, internal consistency, concurrent, and convergent validities of the current version., Results: We found an 18-item, four-factor version of the French DACOBS comprising external attribution bias (five items), social cognition problems (five items), subjective cognition problems (five items), and safety behaviours (five items), provided best fit-to-data. Internal consistency for the resulting subscales ranged from acceptable to excellent (Cronbach's α range = .62-.86). All subscales were significantly, positively associated with a measure of psychotic-like experiences and positively associated with established measures of theoretically relevant constructs, demonstrating concurrent and convergent validity of the French DACOBS., Conclusions: The French DACOBS is a reliable and valid and reliable instrument assessing cognitive biases, in a French-speaking youth population. Ultimately, the French DACOBS may be used to identify at-risk youth which may benefit from cognitive interventions targeting cognitive biases, safety behaviours and social cognition which could potentially prevent transition to psychosis in youth., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

Sleep is an important contributor for neural maturation and emotion regulation during adolescence, with long-term effects on a range of white matter tracts implicated in affective processing in at-risk populations. We investigated the effects of adolescent sleep patterns on longitudinal changes in white matter development and whether this is related to the emergence of emotional (internalizing) problems. Sleep patterns and internalizing problems were assessed using self-report questionnaires in adolescents recruited in the general population followed up from age 14-19 years (N = 111 White matter structure was measured using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and estimated using fractional anisotropy (FA). We found that longitudinal increases in time in bed (TIB) on weekends and increases in TIB-variability between weekdays to weekend, were associated with an increase in FA in various interhemispheric and cortico-striatal tracts. Extracted FA values from left superior longitudinal fasciculus mediated the relationship between increases in TIB on weekends and a decrease in internalizing problems. These results imply that while insufficient sleep might have potentially harmful effects on long-term white matter development and internalizing problems, longer sleep duration on weekends (catch-up sleep) might be a natural counteractive and protective strategy., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Dr Banaschewski served in an advisory or consultancy role for ADHS digital, Infectopharm, Lundbeck, Medice, Neurim Pharmaceuticals, Oberberg GmbH, Roche, and Takeda. He received conference support or speaker’s fee by Medice and Takeda. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. He received royalties from Hogrefe, Kohlhammer, CIP Medien, Oxford University Press. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Gowland has received a research grant from Lyndra and an honorarium paid to her employer from GlaxoSmithKline. The present work is unrelated to the above grants and relationships. Competing Interests Dr Banaschewski served in an advisory or consultancy role for ADHS digital, Infectopharm, Lundbeck, Medice, Neurim Pharmaceuticals, Oberberg GmbH, Roche, and Takeda. He received conference support or speaker’s fee by Medice and Takeda. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. He received royalties from Hogrefe, Kohlhammer, CIP Medien, Oxford University Press. He has been involved in clinical trials conducted by Shire & Viforpharma. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Barker has received honoraria from General Electric Healthcare for teaching on scanner programming courses. Dr Gowland has received a research grant from Lyndra and an honorarium paid to her employer from GlaxoSmithKline. The present work is unrelated to the above grants and relationships., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Importance: Alcohol consumption is one of the leading preventable causes of burden of disease worldwide. Selective prevention of alcohol use can be effective in delaying the uptake and reducing harmful use of alcohol during the school years; however, little is known about the durability of these effects across the significant transition from early adolescence into late adolescence and early adulthood., Objective: To examine the sustained effects of a selective personality-targeted alcohol use prevention program on alcohol outcomes among adolescents who report high levels of 1 of 4 personality traits associated with substance use., Design, Setting, and Participants: A cluster randomized clinical trial was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the selective personality-targeted PreVenture program on reducing the growth of risky alcohol use and related harms from early to late adolescence and early adulthood. Participants included grade 8 students attending 14 secondary schools across New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, in 2012 who screened as having high levels of anxiety sensitivity, negative thinking, impulsivity, and/or sensation seeking. Schools were block randomized to either the PreVenture group (7 schools) or the control group (7 schools). The primary end point of the original trial was 2 years post baseline; the present study extends the follow-up period from July 1, 2017, to December 1, 2019, 7 years post baseline. Data were analyzed from July 22, 2021, to August 2, 2022., Interventions: The PreVenture program is a 2-session, personality-targeted intervention designed to upskill adolescents to better cope with their emotions and behaviors., Main Outcomes and Measures: Self-reported monthly binge drinking, alcohol-related harms, and hazardous alcohol use measured by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Concise consumption screener., Results: Of 438 participants (249 male [56.8%]; mean [SD] age, 13.4 [0.5] years) from 14 schools, 377 (86.2%) provided follow-up data on at least 2 occasions, and among those eligible, 216 (54.0%) participated in the long-term follow-up. Compared with the control condition, the PreVenture intervention was associated with reduced odds of any alcohol-related harm (odds ratio [OR], 0.81 [95% CI, 0.70-0.94]) and a greater mean reduction in the frequency of alcohol-related harms (β = -0.22 [95% CI, -0.44 to -0.003]) at the 7.0-year follow-up. There were no differences in the odds of monthly binge drinking (OR, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.56-1.13]) or hazardous alcohol use (OR, 0.87 [95% CI, 0.59-1.27]) at the 7.0-year follow-up. Exploratory analyses at the 5.5-year follow-up showed that compared with the control condition, the PreVenture intervention was also associated with reduced odds of monthly binge drinking (OR, 0.87, [95% CI, 0.77-0.99]) and hazardous alcohol use (OR, 0.91 [95% CI, 0.84-0.99]), but this was not sustained., Conclusions and Relevance: This study demonstrated that a brief selective personality-targeted alcohol use prevention intervention delivered in the middle school years can have sustained effects into early adulthood., Trial Registration: anzctr.org.au Identifier: ACTRN12612000026820.

Childhood maltreatment (CM) and genetic vulnerability are both risk factors for psychosis, but the relations between them are not fully understood. Guided by the recent identification of genetic risk to CM, this study investigates the hypothesis that genetic risk to schizophrenia also increases the risk of CM and thus impacts psychosis risk. The relationship between schizophrenia polygenetic risk, CM, and psychotic-like experiences (PLE) was investigated in participants from the Utrecht Cannabis Cohort (N = 1262) and replicated in the independent IMAGEN cohort (N = 1740). Schizophrenia polygenic risk score (SZ-PRS) were calculated from the most recent GWAS. The relationship between CM, PRS, and PLE was first investigated using multivariate linear regression. Next, mediation of CM in the pathway linking SZ-PRS and PLE was examined by structural equation modeling, while adjusting for a set of potential mediators including cannabis use, smoking, and neuroticism. In agreement with previous studies, PLE were strongly associated with SZ-PRS (B = 0.190, p = 0.009) and CM (B = 0.575, p < 0.001). Novel was that CM was also significantly associated with SZ-PRS (B = 0.171, p = 0.001), and substantially mediated the effects of SZ-PRS on PLE (proportion mediated = 29.9%, p = 0.001). In the replication cohort, the analyses yielded similar results, confirming equally strong mediation by CM (proportion mediated = 34.7%, p = 0.009). Our results suggest that CM acts as a mediator in the causal pathway linking SZ-PRS and psychosis risk. These findings open new perspectives on the relations between genetic and environmental risks and warrant further studies into potential interventions to reduce psychosis risk in vulnerable people., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Objective: Alcohol use is a leading cause of burden of disease among young people. Prevention strategies can be effective in the short-term; however little is known about their longer-term effectiveness. The aim of this study was to examine the sustainability of universal, selective, and combined alcohol use prevention across the critical transition period from adolescence into early adulthood., Method: In 2012, a total of 2190 students (mean age, 13.3 years) from 26 Australian high schools participated in a cluster randomized controlled trial and were followed up for 3 years post baseline. Schools were randomly assigned to deliver the following: (1) universal Web-based prevention for all students (Climate Schools); (2) selective prevention for high-risk students (Preventure); (3) combined universal and selective prevention (Climate Schools and Preventure [CAP]); or (4) health education as usual (control). This study extends the follow-up period to 7-years post baseline. Primary outcomes were self-reported frequency of alcohol consumption and binge drinking, alcohol-related harms, and hazardous alcohol use, at the 7-year follow-up., Results: At 7-year follow-up, students in all 3 intervention groups reported reduced odds of alcohol-related harms compared to the control group (odds ratios [ORs] = 0.13-0.33), and the Climate (OR = 0.04) and Preventure (OR = 0.17) groups reported lower odds of hazardous alcohol use. The Preventure group also reported lower odds of weekly alcohol use compared to the control group (OR = 0.17), and the Climate group reported lower odds of binge drinking (OR = 0.12), holding mean baseline levels constant., Conclusion: This study demonstrated that both universal and selective preventive interventions delivered in schools can have long-lasting effects and reduce risky drinking and related harms into adulthood. No added benefit was observed by delivering the combined interventions., Clinical Trial Registration Information: The CAP Study: Evaluating a Comprehensive Universal and Targeted Intervention Designed to Prevent Substance Use and Related Harms in Australian Adolescents; https://www.anzctr.org.au/; ACTRN12612000026820., (Copyright © 2021 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

For many traits, males show greater variability than females, with possible implications for understanding sex differences in health and disease. Here, the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) Consortium presents the largest-ever mega-analysis of sex differences in variability of brain structure, based on international data spanning nine decades of life. Subcortical volumes, cortical surface area and cortical thickness were assessed in MRI data of 16,683 healthy individuals 1-90 years old (47% females). We observed significant patterns of greater male than female between-subject variance for all subcortical volumetric measures, all cortical surface area measures, and 60% of cortical thickness measures. This pattern was stable across the lifespan for 50% of the subcortical structures, 70% of the regional area measures, and nearly all regions for thickness. Our findings that these sex differences are present in childhood implicate early life genetic or gene-environment interaction mechanisms. The findings highlight the importance of individual differences within the sexes, that may underpin sex-specific vulnerability to disorders., (© 2020 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and cannabis use disorder (CUD) are associated with brain alterations particularly involving fronto-cerebellar and meso-cortico-limbic circuitry. However, such abnormalities have additionally been reported in other psychiatric conditions, and until recently there has been few large-scale investigations to compare such findings. The current study uses the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) consortium method of standardising structural brain measures to quantify case-control differences and to compare brain-correlates of substance use disorders with those published in relation to other psychiatric disorders. Using the ENIGMA protocols, we report effect sizes derived from a meta-analysis of alcohol (seven studies, N = 798, 54% are cases) and cannabis (seven studies, N = 447, 45% are cases) dependent cases and age- and sex-matched controls. We conduct linear analyses using harmonised methods to process and parcellate brain data identical to those reported in the literature for ENIGMA case-control studies of major depression disorder (MDD), schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder so that effect sizes are optimally comparable across disorders. R elationships between substance use disorder diagnosis and subcortical grey matter volumes and cortical thickness were assessed with intracranial volume, age and sex as co-variates . After correcting for multiple comparisons, AUD case-control meta-analysis of subcortical regions indicated significant differences in the thalamus, hippocampus, amygdala and accumbens, with effect sizes (0.23) generally equivalent to, or larger than |0.23| those previously reported for other psychiatric disorders (except for the pallidum and putamen). On measures of cortical thickness, AUD was associated with significant differences bilaterally in the fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, temporal pole, superior frontal gyrus, and rostral and caudal anterior cingulate gyri. Meta-analysis of CUD case-control studies indicated reliable reductions in amygdala, accumbens and hippocampus volumes, with the former effect size comparable to, and the latter effect size around half of that reported for alcohol and SCZ. CUD was associated with lower cortical thickness in the frontal regions, particularly the medial orbitofrontal region, but this effect was not significant after correcting for multiple testing. This study allowed for an unbiased cross-disorder comparison of brain correlates of substance use disorders and showed alcohol-related brain anomalies equivalent in effect size to that found in SCZ in several subcortical and cortical regions and significantly greater alterations than those found in MDD in several subcortical and cortical regions. Although modest, CUD results overlapped with findings reported for AUD and other psychiatric conditions, but appear to be most robustly related to reduce thickness of the medial orbitofrontal cortex., (© 2020 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: Substance use motives (i.e., reasons for using a substance) are thought to be the most proximal variable leading to substance use. These motives have been described by various typologies, the most well known being the four-factor drinking motives model which separates motives into enhancement, social, coping, and conformity (Cooper, 1994). Although extensively studied in adult community samples, motives for use have less commonly been investigated among populations at a later stage of addiction, where polysubstance use is more common. Moreover, because the motives literature has largely focused on drinking motives, it is not clear whether existing findings can also be applied to other substances (Cooper et al., 2016)., Methods: Using Zero-inflated beta Bayesian linear mixed modeling, we investigated the stability of seven distinct substance use motives (enhancement, social, expansion, coping with anxiety, coping with depression, coping with withdrawal, and conformity) across six different drug categories (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, opioids, stimulants, and tranquilisers) to determine the extent to which drug class can influence motive endorsement. One-hundred-and-thirty-eight methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) clients (F = 34.1%; M = 65.9%; age = 40.18 years) completed a novel short-form polysubstance motives questionnaire., Results: External motives (i.e., conformity and social motives) were the most stable across drug categories, while all internal motives (i.e., enhancement, expansion, and all three coping motives) demonstrated varying levels of inter-drug variability., Conclusions: These findings have important implications for prevention and intervention strategies among people who engage in polysubstance use, highlighting the importance of both universal and substance-specific programming., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Early initiation of polysubstance use (PSU) is a strong predictor of subsequent addiction, however scarce individuals present resilience capacity. This neuroimaging study aimed to investigate structural correlates associated with cessation or reduction of PSU and determine the extent to which brain structural features accounted for this resilient outcome. Participants from a European community-based cohort self-reported their alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use frequency at ages 14, 16 and 19 and had neuroimaging sessions at ages 14 and 19. We included three groups in the study: the resilient-to-PSU participants showed PSU at 16 and/or 14 but no more at 19 (n = 18), the enduring polysubstance users at 19 displayed PSU continuation from 14 or 16 (n = 193) and the controls were abstinent or low drinking participants (n = 460). We conducted between-group comparisons of grey matter volumes on whole brain using voxel-based morphometry and regional fractional anisotropy using tract-based spatial statistics. Random-forests machine-learning approach generated individual-level PSU-behavior predictions based on personality and neuroimaging features. Adolescents resilient to PSU showed significant larger grey matter volumes in the bilateral cingulate gyrus compared with enduring polysubstance users and controls at ages 19 and 14 (p<0.05 corrected) but no difference in fractional anisotropy. The larger cingulate volumes and personality trait "openness to experience" were the best precursors of resilience to PSU. Early in adolescence, a larger cingulate gyrus differentiated adolescents resilient to PSU, and this feature was critical in predicting this outcome. This study encourages further research into the neurobiological bases of resilience to addictive behaviors., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: Fifteen to 25-year-olds are the age group most likely to misuse prescription drugs. Few studies have tested theory-driven models of adolescent risk for prescription drug misuse. Moreover, rarely are distinct pathways to different forms of prescription drug misuse considered. Methods: We tested mediational paths from personality to mental health symptoms to prescription drug misuse, informed by etiological models of addiction. We specified pathways from particular personality traits to unique forms of prescription drug misuse via specific mental health symptoms. We used semi-longitudinal data collected across two waves of the Co-Venture Trial. Our sample included students from 31 Canadian high schools tested in Grade 9 ( n = 3,024) and again in Grade 10 ( n = 2,869; 95% retention). Personality (hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, sensation seeking) was assessed in Grade 9. Mental health symptoms (depression, anxiety, ADHD, conduct disorder) and prescription drug misuse (opioids, sedatives/tranquilizers, stimulants) were assessed at both time points. Results: Consistent with the negative affect regulation model, hopelessness was specifically associated with opioid misuse via depressive symptoms, and anxiety sensitivity was specifically associated with sedative/tranquilizer misuse via anxiety symptoms. Consistent with positive affect regulation, sensation seeking was directly associated with stimulant misuse. Consistent with the psychological dysregulation model, impulsivity was associated with stimulant misuse via ADHD symptoms. And consistent with the deviance proneness model, impulsivity was also associated with unconstrained (i.e., all three forms of) prescription drug misuse via conduct disorder symptoms. Conclusions: Screening for adolescents high in hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, sensation seeking, or impulsivity and providing them with personality-matched cognitive-behavioral interventions may be helpful in preventing or mitigating prescription drug misuse. Our results point to the specific mental health symptoms that are important to target in each of these personality-matched interventions., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Stewart, Chinneck, Thompson, Afzali, Nogueira-Arjona, Mahu and Conrod.)

Aim: To compare the long-term universal outcomes of the Climate Schools programme, the selective preventure programme and their combined implementation to standard substance use education in reducing the uptake of alcohol use, engagement in binge drinking and alcohol-related harms over a 3-year period., Design: A cluster-randomized controlled trial., Setting and Participants: Substance use prevention programmes delivered in Australian secondary schools. Students from 26 Australian secondary schools (n = 2190), mean age at baseline 13.3 years (standard deviation = 0.48), 57.4% male. Schools were recruited between September 2011 and February 2012., Interventions: Schools were block-randomized to one of four groups: universal prevention (climate; 12 × 40-minute lessons); selective prevention (preventure; 2 × 90-minute sessions); combined prevention (climate and preventure; CAP); or health education as usual (control). The climate intervention delivered 12 × 40-minute lessons aimed at reducing alcohol and cannabis use and related harms. The preventure intervention delivered 2 × 90-minute group sessions to high-risk students. The CAP group implemented the climate programme to the entire year group and the preventure programme to the high-risk students., Measurements: Participants were all consenting 8th grade students (in 2012) assessed at baseline, post-intervention (6-9 months post-baseline) and at 12, 24 and 36 months post-baseline on measures of alcohol use, knowledge and related harms. Primary outcomes were alcohol use, binge drinking (five or more standard drinks) and alcohol-related harms, obtained from all students regardless of whether or not they received intervention. Intervention effects at 36 months post-baseline were estimated from generalized multi-level mixed models using data from all time-points and accounting for school-level clustering. Exploratory analyses examined intervention effects among low- and high-risk adolescents., Findings: Compared with students in the control condition, students in the climate, preventure and CAP groups demonstrated significantly slower increases in their likelihood to drink any alcohol [odds ratio (OR) = 0.64, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.50-0.82 for climate; OR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.43-0.71 for preventure and OR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.53-0.84 for CAP] to engage in binge drinking (OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.44-0.82 for climate; OR = 0.59, 95% CI = 0.44-0.80 for preventure and OR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.51-0.92 for CAP) and to experience alcohol harms (OR = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.49-0.82 for climate; OR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.43-0.71 for preventure and OR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.50-0.81 for CAP). There was no strong evidence that the combined approach showed advantages over universal prevention. The direction and magnitude of effects were consistent in low- and high-risk adolescents., Conclusions: The universal Climate Schools programme and the selective preventure programme were effective in reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol problems compared with standard Australian health education, when trialled individually and together over a 3-year period., (© 2020 Society for the Study of Addiction.)

Changing sleep rhythms in adolescents often lead to sleep deficits and a delay in sleep timing between weekdays and weekends. The adolescent brain, and in particular the rapidly developing structures involved in emotional control, are vulnerable to external and internal factors. In our previous study in adolescents at age 14, we observed a strong relationship between weekend sleep schedules and regional medial prefrontal cortex grey matter volumes. Here, we aimed to assess whether this relationship remained in this group of adolescents of the general population at the age of 16 (n = 101; mean age 16.8 years; 55% girls). We further examined grey matter volumes in the hippocampi and the amygdalae, calculated with voxel-based morphometry. In addition, we investigated the relationships between sleep habits, assessed with self-reports, and regional grey matter volumes, and psychological functioning, assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and tests on working memory and impulsivity. Later weekend wake-up times were associated with smaller grey matter volumes in the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdalae, and greater weekend delays in wake-up time were associated with smaller grey matter volumes in the right hippocampus and amygdala. The medial prefrontal cortex region mediated the correlation between weekend wake up time and externalising symptoms. Paying attention to regular sleep habits during adolescence could act as a protective factor against the emergence of psychopathology via enabling favourable brain development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objective: Irritable mood, a common and impairing symptom in psychopathology, has been proposed to underlie the developmental link between oppositional problems in youth and depression in adulthood. We examined the neural correlates of adolescent irritability in IMAGEN, a sample of 2,024 14-year-old adolescents from 5 European countries., Method: The Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) was used to assess attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, major depressive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Three items from the DAWBA, selected as close matches to the Affective Reactivity Index, were used to assess irritability. Structural magnetic resonance imaging was examined using whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analysis, and functional magnetic resonance imaging was examined during a stop signal task of inhibitory control. Imaging data were included in structural equation models to examine the direct and indirect associations between irritable mood and comorbid DSM diagnoses., Results: Whole-brain voxelwise analysis showed that adolescent irritable mood was associated with less gray matter volume and less neural activation underlying inhibitory control in frontal and temporal cortical areas (cluster-correction at p < .05). Structural equation models suggested that part of the observed smaller gray matter volume was exclusively driven by irritability separate from direct relationships between generalized anxiety disorder (or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, major depressive disorder, or oppositional defiant disorder) and gray matter volume., Conclusion: This study identifies adolescent irritability as an independent construct and points to a neurobiological correlate to irritability that is an important contributing feature to many psychopathological disorders., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Major neurocognitive changes occur during adolescence, making this phase one of the most critical developmental periods of life. Furthermore, this phase in life is also the time in which youth substance use begins. Several studies have demonstrated the differential associations of alcohol and cannabis use concerning the neurocognitive functioning of both males and females. Past and contemporary literature on gender-specific effects in neuroscience of addiction is predominantly based on cross-sectional datasets and data that is limited in terms of measurement variability. Given the importance of gender-specific effects in addiction studies, and in order to address the two above-mentioned gaps in the literature, the present study aimed to compare neurocognitive functioning of male and female adolescents in the context of cannabis and alcohol use, while employing a longitudinal design with multiple repeated measurements. Participants were 3,826 high school students (47% female; mean age, 12.7), who were recruited from 31 high schools in the greater Montreal area. Participants were requested to complete annual surveys for five consecutive years, from 7th to 11th grade, assessing their alcohol/cannabis use and neurocognitive functioning (working memory, delayed recall memory, perceptual reasoning, and inhibition control). The analytical strategy focused on the longitudinal association between each predictor (female, male) and each of the outcomes (domains of neurocognitive functioning). Multilevel linear models assessed the association of alcohol and cannabis consumption and the four domains of neurocognitive functioning. Results revealed a gender by within-subject interaction, suggesting a weaker effect of yearly fluctuation of cannabis use on working memory among males compared to females. Our findings suggest a different pattern of neurocognitive impairment of female and male working memory after using cannabis over the course of adolescence. Early initiation of cannabis use potentially results in more spatial working memory deficits in female adolescents. This may negatively influence young females' capacity in academic settings and lead to significant impairment in adulthood, which critically decreases the individual's quality of life., (Copyright © 2020 Noorbakhsh, Afzali, Boers, and Conrod.)

Objective: To examine the secondary effects of a personality-targeted intervention on bullying and harms among adolescent victims and bullies., Method: Outcomes were examined for victims and bullies in the Climate and Preventure study, Australia. Participants completed self-report measures at baseline and four follow-up assessments (6, 12, 24, and 36 months). Thirteen intervention schools (n = 1,087) received Preventure, a brief personality-targeted cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention for adolescents with high-risk personality types (hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, sensation seeking). Thirteen control schools (n = 1,103) received health education as usual. Bullying was examined for high-risk victims (n = 143 in Preventure schools versus n = 153 in control schools) and bullies (n = 63 in Preventure schools versus n = 67 in control schools) in the total sample. Harms were examined for high-risk victims (n = 110 in Preventure schools versus n = 87 in control schools) and bullies (n = 50 in Preventure schools versus n = 30 in control schools) in independent schools., Results: There was no significant intervention effect for bullying victimization or perpetration in the total sample. In the subsample, mixed models showed greater reductions in victimization (b = -0.208, 95% CI -0.4104 to -0.002, p < .05), suicidal ideation (b = -0.130, 95% CI -0.225 to -0.034, p < .01), and emotional symptoms (b = -0.263, 95% CI -0.466 to -0.061, p < .05) among high-risk victims in Preventure versus control schools. Conduct problems (b = -0.292, 95% CI -0.554 to -0.030, p < .05) showed greater reductions among high-risk bullies in Preventure versus control schools, and suicidal ideation showed greater reductions among high-risk female bullies in Preventure versus control schools (b = -0.820, 95% CI -1.198 to -0.442, p < .001)., Conclusion: The findings support targeting personality in bullying prevention., Clinical Trial Registration Information: The CAP Study: Evaluating a Comprehensive Universal and Targeted Intervention Designed to Prevent Substance Use and Related Harms in Australian Adolescents; http://www.anzctr.org.au/; ACTRN12612000026820., (Copyright © 2019 American Academy of Child and Adolescent mPsychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)