Adolescent gambling prevention: From efficacy to effectiveness with the PRIZE [Prevention of gambling risks amongmadolescents] project in Italy

According to the prevention science guidelines, a good preventive intervention should have both efficacy and effectiveness evidence. This means that an intervention should be evidence-based, i.e., it must reach the predicted aims in experimental designs, and it should also maintain its effects when realized in more ecological contexts (Flay et al., 2005). In the field of adolescent gambling prevention, there is a general paucity of intervention studies based on robust evidence-based explanation and intervention models and with subsequent large-scale implementations. This work is focused on different studies conducted by the research team of the Laboratory of Psychometrics at the University of Florence, in Italy, from the experimental evaluation of efficacy of a training to prevent risky gambling behavior among adolescents until the large-scale dissemination of a four-year preventive program called PRIZE [Prevention of gambling risks among adolescents] in Tuscany. The purpose of PRIZE was to modify both cognitive protective factors and risk affective factors, as well as to reduce gambling behavior. We present the main findings obtained from the school year 2019/2020 to the school year 2023/2024. Overall, we involved 8266 adolescents (58% males) attending different high schools. We found a significant increase of cognitive protective factors and a significant decrease of affective risk factors. In the long-term, a significant decrease of gambling frequency was obtained. Parents, teachers, and schools were also involved in parallel educational activities. This work offers empirical evidence about the possibility of doing effective and efficient prevention against gambling with adolescents.