Schulische Alkoholprävention mittels Virtual Reality

Risky alcohol consumption among adolescents continues to be of high public health relevance in Germany. Therefore, preventive measures should promote the skills of adolescents to deal with alcohol and peer pressure. Interactive and gender-sensitive primary prevention programs in schools have a great potential to reach the target group and to increase the effectiveness of interventions. Digital tools such as virtual simulations may help with this process. Virtual reality (VR) enables the experience of risk situations in a safe environment. Internationally, there are currently two VR alcohol prevention programs for adolescents. Their co-creation with the target group was a core element, and comprehensive research on the usability and subjective effectiveness has already been published. Conventional effectiveness evaluations such as randomized controlled trials, however, have limitations with interactive formats. Alternative and complementary evaluation approaches are needed in the future. Furthermore, the potential of tailoring VR to recipients has to be examined. In this context, a gender-sensitive design is both an opportunity and a challenge. Further research is needed to study possibilities to use VR in alcohol prevention in adolescents in Germany.