Web-based parenting program to prevent adolescent alcohol misuse: rationale and development.

Objectives: Despite substantial evidence demonstrating the important influence that parents have on adolescent drinking, evidence-based preventative interventions that help parents to reduce the risk that their child will develop later alcohol use problems are lacking. Although some face-to-face family-based interventions for adolescent alcohol misuse have been found to be effective, their public health impact is limited by their labour-intensiveness, poor uptake and low adherence. A web-based intervention has the potential to overcome many of these challenges, and was recently recommended by prevention experts as one key way to increase participation rates in preventative interventions. This paper describes the development of www.parentingstrategies.net , a website providing parenting guidelines and a tailored web-based intervention endorsed by longitudinal research evidence and expert consensus.

Conclusions: This website provides the first web-based preventative intervention for parents, and has great potential as a family friendly component in the spectrum of interventions that are critically needed to tackle the issue of adolescent alcohol misuse across the community.