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This paper explores the impact of a suite of alcohol culture change interventions implemented by Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. The interventions were designed to change the alcohol culture at a bi-annual nation-wide university multi-sport competition known as Uni Nationals. This study aims to understand the critical success factors of the alcohol culture change initiatives that were developed by the university and implemented as part of a broader set of institutional practices.

A qualitative research design utilised in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nine Uni Nationals student team leaders. In total, two group interviews and four individual interviews were conducted with student team leaders who participated in the Uni Nationals. The interview transcripts were coded and themed. The themes were further refined and interpreted into a narrative. A total of two transcripts were independently coded by the first two authors. Discordant coding was flagged and discussed until a consensus was achieved. The remaining interviews were coded by the first author and discussed with the second author to ensure consistency. A socio-ecological framework was used to understand perceived changes to alcohol culture.

Student leaders were aware of and felt supported by the university-wide approach to changing the culture of Uni Nationals. Overall, the qualitative study indicated that students were positive about the alcohol culture change interventions. The leadership training that engaged team leaders in interactive activities had the greatest impact. Student leaders found the targeted messages, mocktail events and Chef de Mission (CdM) less effective cultural change strategies. However, they helped to establish expectations of students in this setting where a heightened focus on sport was associated with higher alcohol consumption.

While there has been growing academic interest in exploring “drinking cultures”, there has been relatively little focus on alcohol culture of university students at sporting events. The paper contributes to addressing this gap by shedding light on the impact of a group of interventions on the drinking culture of the Uni Nationals subculture.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived susceptibility to alcohol retailers' sales promotion strategies and young, female university students' intention to buy alcohol and attitude towards alcohol consumption.

Data were collected from a convenience sample of three universities in three OECD countries with high alcohol consumption per capita: Australia (n=305), Germany (n=323) and Wales (n=361). A self‐administered survey approach was used to collect data from female university students between the ages of 18 and 24 years in one university in each country. The four alcohol sales promotion strategies of interest were price reductions, quantity specials whereby the more you buy the less you pay on a pro rata basis, bulk purchasing of alcohol, and purchasing from more than one store to take advantage of low prices.

The study found that except for retailer price reductions, the association between Welsh university students' intentions to buy alcohol and their susceptibility to the remaining retailers' sales promotions was greater than that of university students in Australia and Germany, respectively. Significant differences between the countries were found in terms of the salience of perceived susceptibility to retail sales promotion strategies and their correlation with students' attitude towards alcohol consumption.

The paper's findings provide insights particularly for upstream, legislative strategic interventions to combat the issue of alcohol drinking of young female university students.

The purpose of the research is to evaluate the visibility and effectiveness of responsible drinking campaigns used for the sale of the product “beer” (on labels and commercials) on a sample of university students at the University of Pisa to verify whether a preventive “education” on the issue of the effects of alcohol consumption is suitable to improve the perception of responsible communication.

A focus group methodology was used. Three interviews were conducted with 21 university students. The interview protocol was divided into three sections and ten guiding questions were prepared to conduct the focus groups.

The study shows the weak effectiveness of responsible communication promoted by brewers, even though the sample knew aspects related to responsible communication and the adverse health effects of alcohol. Most respondents failed to remember the existence of responsibility messages placed on beverage labels, except as a result of visual stimuli, a sign that preventive education can play a role in message recognition. Commercials seem to have a more significant impact when associated with the dangers of drunk driving. However, promoting consumer awareness campaigns continues to be perceived as contradictory.

This study presents the results of qualitative research that focuses on university students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the most recent responsible communication campaigns conducted by brewers. The research is significant in assessing the effectiveness of communication tools, providing theoretical and industrial implications for improving the understanding of the phenomenon and the effectiveness of responsible messages.

This paper aims to examine social marketing programs aimed at preventing or moderating alcohol consumption among young consumers. It seeks to show how protection motivation theory can be used as a theoretical framework to create effective communications targeting young people.

Communication materials aimed at preventing or moderating alcohol consumption among young people were identified and gathered from web sites in five English‐speaking countries (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK). A qualitative review of these materials was conducted.

A majority of the alcohol moderation/prevention campaigns targeting young consumers followed the tenets of protection motivation theory by focusing on the threat variables of severity and vulnerability. Some campaigns also focused on costs, as well as self‐efficacy and response efficacy.

Only English‐language materials and materials targeting young consumers have been considered, so findings cannot necessarily be generalized to other languages or countries.

Future youth alcohol moderation/prevention initiatives should include self‐efficacy messages, to increase confidence among young people that they are able to carry out the recommended actions.

The review presents a comprehensive examination of initiatives aimed at preventing/reducing alcohol consumption among young consumers, and shows how protection motivation theory can be successfully used in this context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why Saudi Arabian students engage in specific health risk behaviours (HRBs), and if there are gender differences.

In order to find out the situation regarding university students in Saudi Arabia, quantitative data were collected by administering questionnaires to 722 respondents, and qualitative data were collected using a series of interviews with 17 students.

The findings of this mixed methods sequential explanatory study suggest that lifestyle and personal factors, as well as economic, social, policy and other aspects of the environment played a significant role in influencing students’ HRBs. Recommendations for mitigating HRBs among these students and other youth in the Saudi Arabian context are provided.

This paper addresses an important gap in the research on HRBs among university students from the perspectives of students.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and process evaluation of an educational intervention, designed to help general practitioners (GPs) identify and manage problem alcohol use among problem drug users.

The educational session was developed as part of a complex intervention which was informed by the Medical Research Council framework for complex interventions. A Cochrane review and a modified Delphi-facilitated consensus process formed the theoretical phase of the development. The modelling phase involved qualitative interviews with professionals and patients. The training's learning outcomes included alcohol screening and delivery of brief psychosocial interventions and this was facilitated by demonstration of clinical guidelines, presentation, video, group discussion and/or role play.

Participants (n=17) from three general practices and local medical school participated in four workshops. They perceived the training as most helpful in improving their ability to perform alcohol screening. Most useful components of the session were the presentation, handout and group discussion with participants appreciating the opportunity to share their ideas with peers.

Training primary healthcare professionals in alcohol screening and brief psychosocial interventions among problem drug users appears feasible. Along with the educational workshops, the implementation strategies should utilise multi-level interventions to support these activities among GPs.

This study aims to explore the barriers that prevent students from moderating their drinking by comparing attitudes towards moderation in a wet (New Zealand) and dry (Vietnam) drinking culture and examines whether these barriers can be understood by applying an ecological framework.

A qualitative survey involving a written vignette was conducted with a sample of 226 and 277 undergraduates from New Zealand and Vietnam, respectively. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

The analysis reveals that students perceive several barriers to moderate drinking at the intrapersonal level (e.g. positive attitude towards drinking), interpersonal level (e.g. peer pressure) and environmental level (e.g. socialising activities), suggesting that an ecological framework is useful for understanding drinking cultures. The response variations between the two countries provide novel insights into cultural differences in students’ perceptions, with external factors being more important and influential in the wet culture and internal influences being of more concern in the dry culture.

The findings highlight that students in the wet drinking culture do not take personal responsibility for their drinking and suggest that social marketing should move beyond individualistic approaches and towards the disruption of drinking cultures/practices, in pursuit of a healthier drinking culture.

This study provides novel insights into the barriers and facilitators of moderating drinking. Further, the findings demonstrate the value of a holistic ecological framework for understanding student drinking cultures. The comparison between two diverse cultures revealed how insights from one culture can help to understand deep-seated practices and meanings in another.

Alcohol and other drug (AOD) use is common worldwide. There is a wide spectrum of AOD issues that pose a major threat to public health, safety and the wellbeing of communities, families and individuals. There is no doubt that nurses have primary roles in identifying, preventing and addressing AOD use issues in emergency departments and general hospital units, clinics, specialist mental health and drug and alcohol services, sexual health services, youth services and community settings where people seek health care and other assistance. Nurses have credibility and are trusted by communities for their ability to address many health issues, including AOD health problems. Despite the enormous economic burden associated with AOD use across the world, the nursing profession has yet to fully acknowledge and embrace this serious issue for nurses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate drinking patterns; attitudes towards alcohol consumption and alcohol‐related behaviours amongst differing groups of young adults. A further aim is to investigate whether the drinking behaviours of undergraduate populations can be considered to be representative of young adult behaviours in general.

Four groups of young adult alcohol consumers are identified. The participants in the first two groups are aged between 18 and 23, one group being undergraduates and the second non‐graduates in work. Participants in the second two groups are aged between 24 and 29, one group comprising graduates in work, the second non‐graduates in work. 120 questionnaires were completed; 30 in each sample group, with an even gender distribution. Follow up one‐to‐one interviews are carried out with representatives from each group.

Although a small study it is evident that whilst there are some similarities in behaviours between the differing sample groups significant differences in alcohol‐related behaviours dominate.

The results suggest that utilising the results of research carried out amongst student populations to inform government policies with regard to the behaviour of young adults in general is unlikely to be successful in changing drinking behaviours.

This paper produces new insights into current drinking cultures and attitudes towards drinking in differing groups of young adults. Specifically, it compares behavioural norms between graduate and non‐graduate populations challenging much current research which is based upon student samples as being representative of the young adult population as a whole.

Young adult’s drinking is about pleasure, a communal practice of socialising together in a friendship group. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolving support practices of drinking groups for better targeting of health communications messages.

This qualitative descriptive study examined the narratives of 28 young people’s (age 18-24 years old) experience of a “night out” framed as the Alcohol Consumption Journey.

The Alcohol Consumption Journey ritual consisted of three phases: preloading, going out and recovery. The participants described multiple forms of support practices located at each phase of the Alcohol Consumption Journey for maximising pleasure, minimising risk, encouraging supportive behaviours, enhancing group cohesion and protecting the drinkers from alcohol-related harm. Hence, support practices played a critical part in constituting and consolidating the drinking group. While the support practices appeared to be structured into the Alcohol Consumption Journey, they were activated differently for young men and young women. Support practices were an important driver in perpetuating the Alcohol Consumption Journey.

The paper extends Vander Ven’s concept of “drunk support” to better understand young adults’ evolving support practices in the ritualised Alcohol Consumption Journey.