Alcohol Education in Schools

Student Number – 1001012
Tutor Name – Dr. Alcolado
Institution – Royal Glamorgan Hospital

Word Count – 1581

Abstract

Objective – To develop an interactive teaching session for 13-14 year old students concerning the issues surrounding alcohol

Method – A 30 minute teaching session was conducted at 3 different schools covering the social, health and legal aspects of alcohol awareness.

Results – Positive feedback was achieved in all lessons with an average of 2.95/3 for the overall workshop.

Conclusion – The students learnt about the various aspects of alcohol and found the lesson useful.

Introduction

Alcohol is becoming increasingly problematic in the UK. Over the past thirty years, the average consumption of alcohol in many European countries has decreased; however Britain has seen an increase of approximately 9%1. The number of hospital admissions related to alcohol has increased by about 135% and alcohol related crime cost the UK £11 billion last year1. In Wales, a survey conducted showed that around 50% of men and 40% of women admitted to drinking over the recommended amount and this is thought to primarily be due to social and binge drinking2.

The health related issues associated with alcohol are grave. Alcohol can affect many parts of your body including the brain, liver, skin, heart, reproductive organs and fat content3. They can be broken down in both short term and long term effects. Short term is usually associated with problems regarding sleep disturbance, obesity and co-ordination4, 5. Long term effects include cardiovascular problems such as increased risk of heart attack and stroke as well as cardiomyopathies6. The number of admissions for alcoholic hepatitis over the past ten years has increased by nearly 25,000 patients7. Alcohol can also cause conditions such as erectile dysfunction8 and rosacea9.

In this SSC, I will focus on the health aspects of alcohol and try to portray my knowledge to the students I teach.

Aims

I aim to further my knowledge of the social, legal and health aspects of alcohol and be able to deliver a teaching session for 13-14 year old students at 3 different schools in South Wales. I will then use feedback (Appendix 1) forms to ascertain whether the session was useful to the students.

Methodology

It was important to have a lesson plan so that we had a general, clearer idea of what to include. We began by looking at alcohol awareness workshops that have been undertaken already. After having looked at a few lesson plans10, 11, the basis of our lesson plan came together (Appendix 3). The first section was to be an introduction followed by the short term effects and the second half would focus on the long term effects.

Interactive teaching would be important in trying to get our message across as this would help keep the students interested12. Children at this age are very concise about their body size and shape, especially the girls; therefore a calorie game was devised, comparing the calories in a chocolate digestive biscuit to various alcoholic beverages (Appendix 2). This would help to inform them about the causes of a “beer belly.” Chocolate biscuits seemed appropriate as it is a common snack that is highly calorific. A presentation was also created, which mainly included pictures of current celebrities who have become alcoholics (Appendix 4). Young people always have role models who they look up to with celebrities usually being the main ones; therefore if they saw how alcohol affected famous people, I hoped it will make them think twice about drinking in excess.

Props were used to add to the interactive teaching aspect and calorie wheels were given for the students to take home along with a leaflet we created ourselves (Appendix 5).

Results

Table 1: The Average Score of Part I of the Feedback Form for Each Teaching