Fear appeals to reduce alcohol abuse in adolescents using group therapy

Alcohol abuse is a maladaptive pattern of substance use which is manifested by repeated and significant adverse consequences related to repeated alcohol use. Fear appeals are persuasive messages designed to frighten people by explaining the impact that will occur if they do not follow the suggestions and recommendations given. The aims of this study are to determine the effect of fear appeals in lowering alcohol abuse in adolescents. This research is a quantitative study with an experimental model. The design of this study is a pretest-posttest control group experiment model. Subjects were 12 male teens who had abused alcohol. Subjects were divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Group therapy intervention was given to the experimental group. Fear appeals were measured by Risk Behavior Diagnosis (RBD) and alcohol abuse using Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon test, Mann Whitney and Spearman. The results showed that group therapy was able to increase fear appeals in the experimental group, increasing fear appeals are effective to reduce alcohol abuse in adolescents.