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What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature

BACKGROUND: Preventing adolescent substance use and youth violence are public health priorities. Positive youth development interventions are widely deployed often with the aim of preventing both. However, the theorised mechanisms by which PYD is intended to reduce substance use and violence are not...

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Autores principales: Bonell, Chris, Hinds, Kate, Dickson, Kelly, Thomas, James, Fletcher, Adam, Murphy, Simon, Melendez-Torres, G. J., Bonell, Carys, Campbell, Rona
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4748512/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26864336
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2817-3
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author Bonell, Chris
Hinds, Kate
Dickson, Kelly
Thomas, James
Fletcher, Adam
Murphy, Simon
Melendez-Torres, G. J.
Bonell, Carys
Campbell, Rona
author_facet Bonell, Chris
Hinds, Kate
Dickson, Kelly
Thomas, James
Fletcher, Adam
Murphy, Simon
Melendez-Torres, G. J.
Bonell, Carys
Campbell, Rona
author_sort Bonell, Chris
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Preventing adolescent substance use and youth violence are public health priorities. Positive youth development interventions are widely deployed often with the aim of preventing both. However, the theorised mechanisms by which PYD is intended to reduce substance use and violence are not clear and existing evaluated interventions are under-theorised. Using innovative methods, we systematically searched for and synthesised published theoretical literature describing what is meant by positive youth development and how it might reduce substance use and violence, as part of a broader systematic review examining process and outcomes of PYD interventions. METHODS: We searched 19 electronic databases, review topic websites, and contacted experts between October 2013 and January 2014. We included studies written in English, published since 1985 that reported a theory of change for positive youth development focused on prevention of smoking, alcohol consumption, drug use or violence in out-of-school settings. Studies were independently coded and quality-assessed by two reviewers. RESULTS: We identified 16 studies that met our inclusion criteria. Our synthesis suggests that positive youth development aims to provide youth with affective relationships and diverse experiences which enable their development of intentional self-regulation and multiple positive assets. These in turn buffer against or compensate for involvement in substance use and violence. Existing literature is not clear on how intentional self-regulation is developed and which specific positive assets buffer against substance use or violence. CONCLUSIONS: Our synthesis provides: an example of a rigorous systematic synthesis of theory literature innovatively applying methods of qualitative synthesis to theoretical literature; a clearer understanding of how PYD might reduce substance use and violence to inform future interventions and empirical evaluations. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-2817-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-47485122016-02-11 What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature Bonell, Chris Hinds, Kate Dickson, Kelly Thomas, James Fletcher, Adam Murphy, Simon Melendez-Torres, G. J. Bonell, Carys Campbell, Rona BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Preventing adolescent substance use and youth violence are public health priorities. Positive youth development interventions are widely deployed often with the aim of preventing both. However, the theorised mechanisms by which PYD is intended to reduce substance use and violence are not clear and existing evaluated interventions are under-theorised. Using innovative methods, we systematically searched for and synthesised published theoretical literature describing what is meant by positive youth development and how it might reduce substance use and violence, as part of a broader systematic review examining process and outcomes of PYD interventions. METHODS: We searched 19 electronic databases, review topic websites, and contacted experts between October 2013 and January 2014. We included studies written in English, published since 1985 that reported a theory of change for positive youth development focused on prevention of smoking, alcohol consumption, drug use or violence in out-of-school settings. Studies were independently coded and quality-assessed by two reviewers. RESULTS: We identified 16 studies that met our inclusion criteria. Our synthesis suggests that positive youth development aims to provide youth with affective relationships and diverse experiences which enable their development of intentional self-regulation and multiple positive assets. These in turn buffer against or compensate for involvement in substance use and violence. Existing literature is not clear on how intentional self-regulation is developed and which specific positive assets buffer against substance use or violence. CONCLUSIONS: Our synthesis provides: an example of a rigorous systematic synthesis of theory literature innovatively applying methods of qualitative synthesis to theoretical literature; a clearer understanding of how PYD might reduce substance use and violence to inform future interventions and empirical evaluations. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-2817-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-02-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4748512/ /pubmed/26864336 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2817-3 Text en © Bonell et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bonell, Chris
Hinds, Kate
Dickson, Kelly
Thomas, James
Fletcher, Adam
Murphy, Simon
Melendez-Torres, G. J.
Bonell, Carys
Campbell, Rona
What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
title What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
title_full What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
title_fullStr What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
title_full_unstemmed What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
title_short What is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? A systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
title_sort what is positive youth development and how might it reduce substance use and violence? a systematic review and synthesis of theoretical literature
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4748512/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26864336
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2817-3
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