Knowledge and Attitude towards Alcoholism among Adolescents

In 2000, approximately 30% of India's population was aged 10 to 24 yr, that increased to 53 % when children younger than 10 were included. Alcoholism and alcohol related problems are on an increase in India. This may be due to various factors like adolescent's crisis, modernization, peer pressure, increased socio economic status, easy availability. The major concern is that alcohol consumption is associated with certain other behaviors and long range consequences. Most of the problems can be minimized, if not completely prevented by making the public aware of the complications related to alcoholism. In this context, we attempted to assess the knowledge and attitude of adolescents towards alcoholism so that knowledge gained from this study can be utilized to make effective public health programmes. It was conducted using a quantitative, descriptive survey method; data were collected using a structured knowledge assessment questionnaire and attitude inventory in 100 high school students selected by convenient sampling. Findings revealed that adolescents had inadequate knowledge as only 3% of adolescents had excellent knowledge regarding alcoholism while 21% had good,58% had average and 18% had poor knowledge and with respect to attitude 26% of adolescents had unfavorable attitude, 30% had favorable and only 44% had very favorable attitudes. 26% had unfavorable attitude towards alcoholism. The knowledge gained from this study can be utilized to develop and implement effective primary prevention strategies to tackle alcoholism and its associated morbidities. These findings underline the value of targeting adolescents for primary prevention efforts in health care and health education for the attainment of overall healthy population in a state like Kerala.