"Here's to a Night of Drunken Mistakes": Exploring Experiences, Regrets, and Optimism in Young Adult Drinkers.

BACKGROUND: Studies exploring "anticipated regret" concerning alcohol rarely consider the broader consequences of excessive drinking that might be regretted. Even if specific regrettable experiences are identified, interventions targeting them may not succeed because individuals are often optimistic about their risk susceptibility. OBJECTIVES: This study examined the consequences young adult drinkers reported, and the extent to which these were regretted. It then explored whether consequences and regrets differentiated between high risk, low risk and light drinkers, and whether regret was related to optimism. METHODS: A cross-sectional on-line questionnaire measured drinking behavior, consequences (frequency) and regrets (extent of likely regret) and risk perceptions (in general, and compared to others). RESULTS: 273 participants were recruited (light (30%), low-risk (40%), and high-risk drinkers (30%). PCA detected three types of experience (common-e.g., vomiting; after-effects-e.g., being depressed; and "serious"-e.g., drunk-driving), and three types of regret ("serious"-e.g., being aggressive; "common"-e.g., wasting time; and "risky behavior regrets"-e.g., drugs). Multinomial regression found the high-risk drink group more likely to be male, had more experiences but regretted these experiences less than other groups. Regrets and optimism interacted, so that higher scores on common regrets were associated with greater optimism. The high-risk group was particularly characterized by optimism. CONCLUSIONS: High-risk drinkers may be unresponsive to anticipated regret manipulations as they do not regret post-alcohol "bad" experiences, and some regrets were associated with comparative optimism. Interventions may need to focus less on regret and aim to change risk perceptions.

Less is more. Possible ways to improve tuition of the recovery position.

AIM: To identify what 10-11-year-old children do and do not learn during a 10 min session teaching the recovery position, with a view to suggesting possible improvements in training. METHODS: Participants were 148 boys and 144 girls. Before intervention, safety knowledge was assessed in a pencil and paper test. 198 children were taught the recovery position at a safety education centre. Three months later, their attempts to leave a casualty in a safe position were observed, and compared with the attempts of 94 children who had not received training. RESULTS: 19% of the control group and 31% of trained children successfully placed a casualty in the recovery position. Only two of the seven standard routine moves were used by more than 50% of trained children, namely raise the casualty's leg to a flexed position, roll the casualty on to his/her side. Even when performed, these and other individual moves were often not integrated into an effective routine. CONCLUSIONS: The implication is that in a short session it is over-ambitious to attempt to teach a complex routine. It is more realistic to focus on a few moves which are easily learnt. The present results suggest that these should be flexing the leg and rolling the casualty on to his/her side. In this study, simply improving the participants' performance of these two moves could increase the number of learners who are successful from less than a third to nearly 50%.

'Home from home': risk perceptions, malaria and the use of chemoprophylaxis among UK South Asians.

OBJECTIVES: Malaria is a serious disease hazard facing travellers to tropical countries. On average around 2000 cases of malaria are annually imported into the UK, with an over-representation of ethnic minority members. The current research examined adherence to chemoprophylaxis among UK South Asians travelling to malarial regions in South Asia and East Africa. DESIGN: Four hundred South Asians were interviewed with a questionnaire investigating use of malaria prophylaxis, knowledge of malaria, risk perceptions and reasons for inadequate or zero adherence to chemoprophylaxis. Two hundred interviews were conducted in 1994, and a further 200 interviews in 2004. Participants were recruited from areas of known ethnic density in Leicester, London and Oxford. RESULTS: In 1994, although 49% embarked on taking anti-malaria tablets, only 22% took tablets for 2 or more weeks upon return to the UK (and only 6% for the medically advisory period of 4 weeks). In 2004, 32% embarked on taking tablets but only 9% took tablets for 2 or more weeks upon returning to the UK (and only 2.5% for 4 weeks). Good adherence was associated with greater knowledge about the symptoms and transmission of malaria, and being more likely to define the trip as a 'holiday' rather than as a visit to 'family and friends'. Zero adherence was associated with a failure to recognise the potential severity and critical nature of malaria. Common reasons for partial and zero adherence were the perception that the personal risk of getting malaria was low and an erroneous belief in immunity. CONCLUSIONS: The specific cognitions available to ethnic minority members travelling 'home' contribute to a very low use of chemoprophylaxis, thus placing them at a heightened risk of acquiring malaria. Health messages need to stress that malaria is a serious health hazard and that emigres visiting malarial regions cannot rely on personal immunity.

Accident frequency and unrealistic optimism: Children's assessment of risk.

Accidental injury is a major cause of mortality and morbidity among children, warranting research on their risk perceptions. Three hundred and seven children aged 10-11 years assessed the frequency, danger and personal risk likelihood of 8 accidents. Two social-cognitive biases were manifested. The frequency of rare accidents (e.g. drowning) was overestimated, and the frequency of common accidents (e.g. bike accidents) underestimated; and the majority of children showed unrealistic optimism tending to see themselves as less likely to suffer these accidents in comparison to their peers, offering superior skills or parental control of the environment as an explanation. In the case of pedestrian accidents, children recognised their seriousness, underestimated the frequency of this risk and regarded their own road crossing skill as protection. These findings highlight the challenging task facing safety educators who, when teaching conventional safety knowledge and routines, also need to alert children to the danger of over-confidence without disabling them though fear.

Unrealistic optimism: East and west?

Following Weinstein's (1980) pioneering work many studies established that people have an optimistic bias concerning future life events. At first, the bulk of research was conducted using populations in North America and Northern Europe, the optimistic bias was thought of as universal, and little attention was paid to cultural context. However, construing unrealistic optimism as a form of self-enhancement, some researchers noted that it was far less common in East Asian cultures. The current study extends enquiry to a different non-Western culture. Two hundred and eighty seven middle aged and middle income participants (200 in India, 87 in England) rated 11 positive and 11 negative events in terms of the chances of each event occurring in "their own life," and the chances of each event occurring in the lives of "people like them." Comparative optimism was shown for bad events, with Indian participants showing higher levels of optimism than English participants. The position regarding comparative optimism for good events was more complex. In India those of higher socioeconomic status (SES) were optimistic, while those of lower SES were on average pessimistic. Overall, English participants showed neither optimism nor pessimism for good events. The results, whose clinical relevance is discussed, suggest that the expression of unrealistic optimism is shaped by an interplay of culture and socioeconomic circumstance.