A model for improving medical training in substance abuse is presented based on the proposals of 22 Career Teacher Grant Programs. The grant provides support for training medical faculty to develop and implement a substance abuse curriculum. The model includes objectives for initial preparations and advice regarding the development and…

Research findings show that, compared with Black, Polish, and other ethnic urban youth, urban Appalachian teenagers exhibit greater symptomatic behavior indicating severe difficulties in coping with urban environments. Particularly striking among these patterns, which hold for both females and males, is the heavy drug use among Appalachian youth.…

Family relationship quality, not parental alcohol use, predicted levels of depression and self-esteem in 201 college students. Witnessing spousal abuse related to increased depression in adult children of alcoholics, whole poorer family relationship quality was associated with lower self-esteem, suggesting the experience of paternal alcoholism is…

Examined 547 college students' adjustment. Results indicated significant main effects for gender but not for alcoholic parentage. Gender differences occurred for alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and other problems. Findings suggested that, in terms of adjustment, college students from alcoholic homes should not be distinguished from the general…

Psychology graduate students (n=185) responded to case descriptions in which client gender, alcoholism, and socioeconomic status (SES) were manipulated. Found consistent, negative effect of client alcoholism on several prognostic variables, including decision to hospitalize; tendency for female clients to be thought to require more therapy…

This study examined the self-reported parenting experience and practices of women who were either incest victims of their fathers as children (n=20), whose fathers were alcoholic but not sexually abusive (n=25), or who had no known risk in childhood (n=39). Incest survivors reported less confidence and sense of control as parents. (Author/DB)

The Quality of Life Inventory, a measure of life satisfaction for psychological assessment and treatment planning, was evaluated with 54 inpatients, 54 recovering alcoholics, 18 private alcohol- and drug-treatment patients, 127 college counseling recipients, 272 undergraduates, and 19 criminal offenders. Results support the measures' psychometric…

This study reports on the problems that children of alcoholics (COAs) have related to campus authorities across the country. Explores the services offered at campuses and probes the extent to which COAs' more frequent problems raise critical research questions, both of which affect guiding services to this group. (RJM)

Little attention has been paid to college women's drinking. For women, drinking is often a way of making friends and establishing intimate relationships. Peer influence is a strong persuader. College women who are careless in using alcohol may encounter additional problems like increased stress, depression, and sexual dysfunction. (SM)

Examined effects of prenatal drug exposure on infants born preterm and full-term to African American mothers. Found more extreme fetal growth deficits in later-born infants, and more extreme irritability increases in earlier-born infants. Gestation length did not moderate cardiorespiratory reactivity effects. Exposure effects occurred for…

A college junior's personal narrative tells how, with the help of a handful of caring adults, he managed to overcome a life of poverty with no parental support. He states that adults can help troubled adolescents by emphasizing their creativity and intellect, not their bad habits or inescapable backgrounds and history. (Author/MKA)

Tested whether adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems, heavy alcohol use, fathers' parenting, and family conflict varied over time with fluctuations in fathers' alcohol impairment. Found that adolescent symptomology and family environment did not vary over time as function of different trajectories of paternal alcohol impairment.…

A Harvard School of Public Health survey of 17,592 college students concerning alcohol consumption found 84% reported drinking during the school year, with 19% frequent binge drinkers. Half of these were binge drinkers in high school. Also investigated were other drug use, dangerous behavior, secondhand binge effects, and gender effects. A 12-step…

Reported that parental alcoholism is prognostic of childhood behavior problems, both directly, through genetic and modeling effects, and indirectly, through parental distress and physical problems. It was hypothesized that the heightened rate of behavior problems in children of alcoholics could be traced to the combination of negative interactions…

The authors evaluated a protocol to screen and provide brief interventions for alcohol problems to college students treated at a university hospital emergency department (ED). Of 2,372 drinkers they approached, 87% gave informed consent. Of those, 54% screened positive for alcohol problems (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score [less…