Can a Didactic Intervention Influence Adolescent Attitudes to Acquired Brain Injury?
A number of large-scale programs in the USA and Australia use didactic educational intervention in an effort to diminish the incidence of pre-adult brain injury. The present study examined the effects of a short-term brain-injury prevention program on the attitudes of a sample of high-school students in Queensland, Australia. Students gave self-report responses to items requiring them to rank conceptually distinct sets of items, respond to Likert scale items, estimate the magnitude of their response, and provide open-ended responses. The program was run as an experimental study, in that separate classes of students were assigned to a control group, a video group, a one-hour program group, and a video plus program group. Results suggest that, while the video and program had an immediate influence on student attitudes, these returned to pre-test levels within 2 months. Also, interestingly, males continued to rate their risk of brain injury higher than did females before and after the int
