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Background: Temperament is a relatively stable individual characteristic. Temperament predicts many consequential outcomes throughout life. Different dimensions of temperament lead to different patterns of responses to external stimuli. Dimensions such as activity level and negative emotionality are related to risk-promoting behavior like substance use in adolescents. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we included 35 adolescents in the age group of 10–17 years. We included adolescents attending outpatient clinics and inpatient services who were diagnosed with mental disorders due to substance use according to ICD-10 diagnostic criteria. We also included 35 healthy controls. All study participants in the case and control groups were assessed using the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (EATQ-R) scale. Results: When temperament was assessed using the EATQ-R, the mean scores were highest for frustration, aggression, surgency, and depressed mood, but were lowest for shyness in the study group. While comparing temperament between the study group and the control group, significant differences were found between activation control (p < 0.05), aggression (p < 0.001), attention (p < 0.001), depressed mood (p < 0.05), fear (p < 0.001), inhibitory control (p < 0.001), shyness (p < 0.001), and surgency (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Temperament plays a significant rôle in adolescent substance use. Person-specific treatment can be designed to provide better care and management of patients in taking temperament into account.

Background: Temperament is a relatively stable individual characteristic. Temperament predicts many consequential outcomes throughout life. Different dimensions of temperament lead to different patterns of responses to external stimuli. Dimensions such as activity level and negative emotionality are related to risk-promoting behavior like substance use in adolescents. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we included 35 adolescents in the age group of 10-17 years. We included adolescents attending outpatient clinics and inpatient services who were diagnosed with mental disorders due to substance use according to ICD-10 diagnostic criteria. We also included 35 healthy controls. All study participants in the case and control groups were assessed using the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (EATQ-R) scale. Results: When temperament was assessed using the EATQ-R, the mean scores were highest for frustration, aggression, surgency, and depressed mood, but were lowest for shyness in the study group. While comparing temperament between the study group and the control group, significant differences were found between activation control (p < 0.05), aggression (p < 0.001), attention (p < 0.001), depressed mood (p < 0.05), fear (p < 0.001), inhibitory control (p < 0.001), shyness (p < 0.001), and surgency (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Temperament plays a significant rôle in adolescent substance use. Person-specific treatment can be designed to provide better care and management of patients in taking temperament into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the prevalence of alcohol, cigarette, and cannabis co-use among a longitudinal cohort of youth predominately born to single-parent families. Data were drawn from wave six of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2976; M age = 15.6; 49% female; 53% non-Hispanic Black, 27% Hispanic, 20% White). Adolescents' reports of their past 30-day use of alcohol, cigarettes, and cannabis were used to construct eight mutually exclusive use groups. Multinomial logistic regressions adjusting for sociodemographic factors revealed that Black adolescents were at lower relative risk of using Alcohol Only compared to White adolescents. Black males were at greater relative risk of using Cannabis Only than both White males and Black females. Finally, Hispanic males were at a marginally increased relative risk of co-using Alcohol and Cannabis compared to White males. Prevention efforts targeting Black and Hispanic males' use of cannabis (both alone and in combination with alcohol) may be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trait impulsivity and callous‐unemotional traits are associated with behavioural problems among high‐risk adolescents. While both are known to influence behaviour, the nature of their expression in high‐risk behaviours, particularly those related to inhibitory control, is not well understood. In the current, preliminary study, we examined whether and how these traits predicted deficits in behaviour driven by bottom‐up, automatic versus deliberate, top‐down inhibitory processes among high‐risk adolescents. Two go/no‐go task variants, emotional and non‐emotional, were used to assess reactive response inhibition, and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used to assess the ability to resist deliberate risky choices. The results showed that the two types of self‐reported trait measures were differentially associated with performance on the two types of behavioural inhibition tasks. Trait impulsivity predicted non‐emotional inhibitory control whereas callous‐unemotional traits predicted risky choices. The results also showed that the emotions task elicited slower reaction times and higher false alarm rates than did the letters task, and that participants had greater difficulty inhibiting responses to negatively than to positively valenced no‐go stimuli. While preliminary, the results suggest that the interplay between trait impulsivity and callous‐unemotional traits is an important determinant of inhibitory behaviour in this high‐risk adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several school-based prevention programmes have been developed and used to prevent, delay, or reduce substance misuse, and related problems among community samples of adolescents. However, findings indicate that many of these interventions are associated with null, small, or mixed effects in reducing adolescent substance misuse, in particular for those mostly at risk of transitioning to substance use disorders. These findings highlight the need to shift the focus of substance use prevention efforts toward intervention strategies which directly target high-risk adolescents. The Preventure programme was designed to target four personality risk factors for substance misuse: hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. This article reviews findings from the previous trials of personality-targeted interventions (i.e., Preventure programme) with adolescents and discuss the promises and benefits of these interventions for targeting community samples of high-risk adolescents at school level for reducing substance misuse and related mental health problems. Findings indicated that this programme has been successful in reducing the rates of alcohol and illicit drug use and substance-related harms by ~50% in high-risk adolescents with the effects last for up to 3 years. These interventions were also associated with a 25% reduction in likelihood of transitioning to mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and conduct problems. The programme is particularly beneficial for youth with more significant risk profiles, such as youth reporting clinically significant levels of externalizing problems, and victimized adolescents. A key strength of the Preventure programme is that it is embedded in the community and provides substance use intervention at school level to the general samples of high-risk adolescents who might not otherwise have access to those programmes.

Previous research has found that a combination of high levels of behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and low levels of behavioral activation system (BAS-Drive) predicts suicidal thinking (Rasmussen, Elliott, & O’Connor, 2012). In this study, we examined whether the effects of a suicide prevention education program for junior highschool students were moderated by the risk level of students, regarding a combination of high BIS and low BASDrive as a high risk for suicide. A total of 28 high-risk students and 167 low-risk students participated in the program. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires during the intervention. As a result of the analysis, it was suggested that through the program, not only low-risk students but also potential high-risk students could gain the ability to seek assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several school-based prevention programmes have been developed and used to prevent, delay, or reduce substance misuse, and related problems among community samples of adolescents. However, findings indicate that many of these interventions are associated with null, small, or mixed effects in reducing adolescent substance misuse, in particular for those mostly at risk of transitioning to substance use disorders. These findings highlight the need to shift the focus of substance use prevention efforts toward intervention strategies which directly target high-risk adolescents. The Preventure programme was designed to target four personality risk factors for substance misuse: hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. This article reviews findings from the previous trials of personality-targeted interventions (i.e., Preventure programme) with adolescents and discuss the promises and benefits of these interventions for targeting community samples of high-risk adolescents at school level for reducing substance misuse and related mental health problems. Findings indicated that this programme has been successful in reducing the rates of alcohol and illicit drug use and substance-related harms by ~50% in high-risk adolescents with the effects last for up to 3 years. These interventions were also associated with a 25% reduction in likelihood of transitioning to mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and conduct problems. The programme is particularly beneficial for youth with more significant risk profiles, such as youth reporting clinically significant levels of externalizing problems, and victimized adolescents. A key strength of the Preventure programme is that it is embedded in the community and provides substance use intervention at school level to the general samples of high-risk adolescents who might not otherwise have access to those programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether experiences of familial victimization and aggression are potential risk factors for dating violence in male and female teenage relationships. The authors compare 471 adolescents aged 12 to 19 in the care of a youth protection agency and from a community sample. Results show that adolescents carry negative childhood experiences of family violence into their intimate relationships in different ways, depending on gender and level of risk. Female adolescents who had been victimized by either of their parents were at greater risk for revictimization, but not aggression, within their dating relationships. High-risk adolescent males who reported childhood victimization were at a particularly high risk of being aggressive toward their girlfriends, especially if they were harshly disciplined by their father. The extent of aggression toward parents predicted aggression toward dating partners, particularly for girls. The authors discuss these findings in terms of prevention and early intervention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: The aim of this paper was to describe the Adolescent Intensive Management (AIM) team at the Austin Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), a unique model of intensive outreach service with high-risk and difficult-to-engage adolescents, and describe the profile of clients referred to it. Method: This study used a retrospective review of clients' data, collected through file audit, over a 12-month period. Results: The result of the study showed that a 100% retention rate of adolescents with complex social, emotional and mental health needs is possible in a flexible and multi-system approach to service provision. Conclusion: Clients referred to the CAMHS' AIM team displayed a pattern of multiple risk factors and comorbidities. Low caseload of 8-10 clients per clinician allowed flexibility and a level of intensity to make any necessary changes in service provision to better suit the client's needs. The majority of clients showed improvement in functioning following intervention by the team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article synthesizes research on resilience theory and its implications for prevention interventions to increase resilience in high-risk children and adolescents. In addition, this response to both the articles by Drs. Greenberg and Dishion summarizes their key points. Their papers discuss the neuroscience substrate behind two major mediators of antisocial behaviors, namely lack of self-regulation and executive function problems. In addition, we present an overall Resilience Framework that will help the reader organize the aspects of resilience discussed by these two researchers into a transactional process model. This article extends prior researchers' suggestion that resilience is the product of the interaction of genetic, biological, and environmental precursors to a further consideration of higher-level cognitive precursors, such as purpose in life and existential meaning. The relevance of resilience to the prevention of negative outcomes in high-risk children of alcoholics (COAs) and substance abusers is covered. Within this third wave of resilience research on prevention interventions, we present data suggesting that family strengthening approaches have the greatest impact on increasing resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A major factor attributed to the problem and consequences of underage alcohol use is binge drinking. The objective of this study was to examine binge drinking and other alcohol-related problem behaviour among high-risk male and female adolescents who were from alternative schools and programs because of learning and/or behaviour problems. Self-report data were collected from a purposive sample of 917 adolescents in Israel who ranged from 12 to 18 years. Binge drinking during the last 30 days prior to the survey was reported by 33% of males and 23% of females . Results of other alcohol-related behaviour showed gender status not related to being in a car when the driver had been drinking (12%) or having driven a car or motorcycle after drinking (5%). Multiple regression analysis showed binge drinking related to what a youth does with time; a decline in relations with family members; selling drugs; and, having been in a serious fight during the last 12 months. Country of origin, i.e. born in Israel or the Former Soviet Union, was not found linked to binge drinking. Further research of binge drinking and alcohol-related problem behaviour among high-risk youth is important so that it can be applied to immediate and longstanding prevention efforts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The goal of this study was the exploration of distal effects of alcohol use on condom use. Criminally involved adolescents completed an initial measure of attitudes, beliefs, and prior behavior. Of the 300 who completed the initial measurement, 267 (89%) completed a behavioral assessment 6 months later. Analyses validated a theoretical model of condom use intentions and indicated that intentions and attitudes measured at baseline were significant predictors of condom use behavior 6 months later. Neither alcohol use nor alcohol problems moderated relationships among model variables or the influence of intentions and attitudes on behavior. The findings do not support a distal role for alcohol use in altering the cognitive correlates of condom use intentions and behavior among high-risk adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Purpose: To gain a better understanding of adolescents’ knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding hepatitis B. Method: Three types of data were collected as part of this investigation: (a) 45 in-depth individual interviews with staff from 20 adolescent health, sexually transmitted disease (STD), and family planning clinics; (b) 96 individual interviews with adolescents and young adults; and (c) questionnaires completed by 17,063 adolescents and young adults. All instruments focused on one or more of the following five topics: (a) knowledge about vaccines; (b) knowledge about hepatitis B; (c) barriers to vaccine acceptance, and ways to overcome these barriers; (d) benefits of the vaccine acceptance, and ways to enhance these benefits; and (e) eight hepatitis B risk factors. Interview data was analyzed using qualitative thematic note-based analyses. Survey data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests. Results: Adolescents and young adults seen in these clinics know very little about vaccinations in general, or hepatitis B, in particular. Adolescents exhibit low levels of perceived susceptibility, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy toward hepatitis B and the hepatitis B vaccine. On average, these adolescents engage in 2.36 high-risk behaviors (the most frequent of which include sexual activity, body piercing, and tattooing). Those who were sexually active, had a tattoo, had a STD, or worked with blood were significantly more likely to begin the vaccination series. Conclusions: There is a clear need for additional educational efforts regarding both vaccinations in general, and hepatitis B in particular. Though adolescents are engaging in a variety of high-risk behaviors, most perceive their risk to be low, and therefore many are not taking the necessary precautions to protect themselves. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]