Issue 1/2024

New Conceptual Aspects of Creating Prevention Programmes

The thematic focus of this issue of the Addictology journal is again closely related to the issue of prevention programmes. The outcomes of all these studies call for the necessity of systematic investigation of the addiction symptoms, activators acting in the individual as well as community environment, and their evaluation. They also point to the increasing role of several actors in the prevention system as well as their responsibility.

The authors of the first study provide a systematic overview of the definitions of craving and withdrawal, the nature and presence of withdrawal symptoms, the duration of abstinence, the prevalence, and nature of craving. Decreasing craving can alleviate gambling-related withdrawal. According to the authors, it is essential to carry out interdisciplinary studies and to reveal causal relations between withdrawal symptoms and craving. The issue of craving occurrence and its influence on the efficiency of the withdrawal processes has been investigated only in a minimal way. The study calls for an appeal for prioritising craving evaluation before, during, and after abstinence.

In addition to examining the effects of craving, the influence of thinking styles is also an interesting research construct. The authors of the second study examined the effect of trait psychopathy and fun seeking behavioural activation system on alcohol drinking and whether this effect is moderated by thinking styles. In their research, they applied a sample of 241 working adults. The research showed that psychopathy indirectly predicted alcohol consumption through Behavioral Activation System fun seeking. The study appeals to the importance of investigating all the aspects that create psychological mechanisms for drinking alcohol.

The authors of the third study examine a field of addiction that some population groups consider to be of little harm. Sports betting and gambling represent also an important field of addictive behaviour with many negative impacts. The authors focused on the university population, which can see in sports betting and gambling not only an opportunity for obtaining financial resources, but also a source of relaxation and release of stressful feelings related to the educational activities. The study outcomes confirmed the dependence between the amount invested in sports betting and the selected socio-demographic characteristics, while the type of faculty played also an important factor. Knowledge of the form of sports betting is important for creating targeted prevention programmes.

The risk behaviour of the different population groups can be influenced in several ways. The authors of the fourth study focused on online education as an accessible, high-quality, and cost-effective form of risk behaviour prevention. The study outcomes are aimed at evaluating the experience of university students with an online educational course aimed at preventing risky behaviour. Obtaining feedback from these educational prevention activities will make it possible to increase the quality and efficiency of these courses and to develop evaluation prevention mechanisms.

Family involvement can also be an efficient preventive barrier and protective factor in childhood and adolescence. This is also proven by the authors of the fifth study, providing a conceptualised framework for the FERYA programme. This programme is focused to strengthen the position of family organisations as significant forms of prevention in the society and to create community systems of stakeholders. Every intervention process has not only to be measured, but also evaluated. Hence, the authors remind the importance of measuring the long-term outcomes.

Besides the role of the family in the prevention system, general practitioners also have an important position. The authors of the last study focus on evaluating the experience of general practitioners through the interview method. They appeal to the importance of their training for professional development, better care of the client, and for achieving higher treatment success. The higher competence of medical specialists is also related to their individual and professional development that requires setting up these educational processes and measuring them in relation to prevention as well as the success of addiction treatment.

The outcomes of all the studies speak not only about the strong importance of prevention programmes, but also about the actors, who appear in this system and fulfil various increasingly complex tasks. Their goal is common – to predict, to reveal, and to fight addiction, so that its negative effects on the individual and the society are as small as possible. The significance of all the studies involved in this issue can also be justified by the interesting concepts. For instance, the Bauman›s Liquid Modernity concept points to the dynamic and constantly altering characteristics of the social structures, relationships and institutions, the unpredictable characteristics of the social, economic, and cultural processes. Also within this concept, it would be very interesting to investigate challenges, opportunities, and risks that this rapidly altering world brings and affects the risky behaviour of individuals too. Hence, the outcomes of the studies provide a strong research potential in interdisciplinary research and thus, stimulate the construction of strong multidisciplinary teams. These can be highly beneficial for the formation of new prevention programmes developed in the digital era and create new evaluation mechanisms.

Prague, 27 May 2024

Professor Beáta Gavurová, PhD, MBA

Executive Editor of Addictology

beata [dot] gavurova [at] lf1 [dot] cuni [dot] cz