• Sachi Tomokawa, Kimihiro Miyake, Takeshi Akiyama, Yuka Makino, Akihiro Nishio, Jun Kobayashi, Masamine Jimba, Irene Ayi, Sammy M Njenga, and Takashi Asakura.
• Department of sports and sciences, Faculty of Education, Shinshu University, 6-Ro Nishi Nagano, Nagano City, Nagano 380-8544, Japan.
• Afr Health Sci. 2020 Sep 1; 20 (3): 1397-1406.

BackgroundDespite recognition of the risks of alcohol use and importance of prevention from an early age, the effectiveness of school-based interventions in Africa has not been clarified.ObjectiveWe aimed to identify effective school-based alcohol use prevention interventions in Africa.MethodsWe searched eight databases for peer-reviewed articles published until February 3, 2019 that reported on randomized controlled trials, cluster randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, pre-post quasi-experimental studies, cohort studies, and case-control studies. The full-texts of relevant studies were searched.ResultsFour of 2797 papers met our eligibility criteria. All reported interventions targeted secondary school students in South Africa and were incorporated in the school curriculum. The interventions comprised multi-component activities with participatory and peer educational methods, and applied modified programs originally developed in the US. However, intervention effects were inconsistent among studies, although the interventions tended to have a positive effect on non-drinkers at baseline, with stronger effects in girls.Conclusioninterventions had positive effects on students that were non-drinkers at baseline, especially girls. Although we could not find robust evidence that school-based interventions changed attitudes, frequency/quantity of drinking, and intentions to use alcohol, one intervention showed an increase in students' alcohol refusal self-efficacy.© 2020 Tomokawa S et al.

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