Alcohol Drinking in College
Conditions
Brief summary
All students who enroll in the study will receive an efficacious counselor-delivered brief motivational intervention. The intervention is based in principles of motivational interviewing. Students complete a baseline assessment on their alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences. During the hour-long session, the counselor uses information from the baseline assessment to compare the student's level of alcohol consumption to that of peers at the same university, discuss choices that may lead to experiencing negative consequences, and provide opportunities for the student to set goals for risk reduction. This study will develop and pilot a maintenance enhancement intervention. The intervention is expected to consist of four components, for example: (1) Student participants may learn to use techniques based in mindfulness to cope with negative emotions. (2) Student participants may identify barriers to reducing their alcohol use and identify protective strategies for navigating those barriers. (3) Student participants may be presented with narratives from other students who successfully resumed moderate drinking after a heavy drinking episode. Students may also be prompted to identify alcohol free activities that they enjoy and can engage in after experiencing a heavy drinking episode. (4) Parents may also receive a handbook encouraging communication with their student about alcohol use.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALParent handbook
Handbook motivating parents to discuss alcohol use with their college student.
BEHAVIORALCoping with negative emotions
Mindfulness-based techniques are taught to improve ability to cope with negative emotions.
BEHAVIORALProblem-solving risky situations
Identifying and planning for barriers to change are encouraged.
BEHAVIORALRecovering from slips
Peer and personalized techniques are discussed to facilitate resumption of moderate drinking after a heavy drinking episode.
Sponsors
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
FACTORIAL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Student participants must meet the following eligibility criteria: * Currently enrolled student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst * First time violator of the university alcohol policy * Mandated to complete the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) intervention * Minimum age 18 Parent participants must meet the following eligibility criteria: • The parent or guardian of students who meet all of the student participant criteria
Exclusion criteria
• None.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Drinking Intentions | Immediate post-test | Drinking intentions will be assessed using a modified version of the daily drinking questionnaire (Young, Rodriguez, \& Neighbors, 2013). Participants will complete a 7-day grid, indicating how many drinks they intend to consume on a typical Sunday, Monday, etc. in the next month. Responses will be summed to capture intentions for typical weekly drinking. |
| Coping motives | Immediate post-test | Thirteen items will be assessed capturing drinking to cope with both anxiety and depression (Cooper, 1994; Grant, Stewart, O'Connor, Blackwell, \& Conrod, 2007). Items assess using alcohol "to reduce my anxiety" or "to forget my worries" and are rated on a 1 (almost never/never) to 5 (almost always/always) scale. Items will be averaged to form separate scale scores for coping with anxiety and coping with depression. The measure has been shown to be reliable among college students. |
| Parent-student communication | Immediate post-test | Five items will assess parents' intentions for engaging in general communication with their child about school, social activities, personal issues, romantic relationships, and personal problems (Barnes, Hoffman, Welte, Farrell, \& Dintcheff, 2006). Items are rated on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (frequently) scale and averaged to form a scale score. This measure has been shown to be responsive to a parent-based intervention and reliable among college students (Testa, Hoffman, Livingston, \& Turrisi, 2010). |
| Maintenance self-efficacy | Immediate post-test | Maintenance self-efficacy will be assessed with the 8-item Brief Situational Confidence Questionnaire (BSCQ; Breslin, Sobell, Sobell, \& Agrawal, 2000). Student participants will indicate confidence in their ability to resist drinking heavily in eight situations, such as during pleasant times with others, (e.g., celebrating with a friend). Items are rated from 0% (not at all confident) to 100% (completely confident) and averaged to form a scale score. The measure is reliable and detects intervention-induced change among non-dependent young adults (Magill et al., 2017). |
| Recovery self-efficacy | Immediate post-test | Recovery self-efficacy will be assessed with nine items adapted from previous research (Luszczynska, Mazurkiewicz, Ziegelmann, \& Schwarzer, 2007). One item will assess overall recovery self-efficacy and eight will mirror the situations used in the BSCQ . Items include, "I am confident that I could resume moderate drinking, even if I drank heavily because I was enjoying pleasant times with others." Like the BSCQ, items will be rated from 0% (not at all confident) to 100% (completely confident). |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed