A text message program as a booster to in-person brief interventions for mandated college students to prevent weekend binge drinking

Abstract

Objective-To evaluate a text message (SMS) program as a booster to an in-person alcohol intervention with mandated college students.Participants-Undergraduates (n=224; 46% female) who violated an on-campus alcohol policy over a 2 semester period in 2014.Methods-The SMS program sent drinking-related queries each Thursday and Sunday and provided tailored feedback for 6 weeks. We examined response rates to SMS drinking-related queries and the associations between weekend drinking plans, drinking-limit goal commitment and alcohol consumption. Gender differences were explored.Results-90% of SMS queries were completed. Weekend binge drinking decreased over 6 weeks, and drinking-limit goal commitment was associated with less alcohol consumption. Compared with women, men had greater reductions in alcohol consumption when they committed to a drinking-limit goal.Conclusions-Preliminary evidence suggests that an SMS program could be useful as a booster for helping mandated students reduce weekend binge drinking. Keywordsalcohol; text message; college student; mandated Alcohol use is a major contributor to student morbidity and mortality 1 and there are thousands of alcohol policy violations per year on college campuses. 2,3 College students who violate campus alcohol policies have been shown to drink at higher quantities than general college populations, 4 and are therefore an important sub-population to target for interventions aimed at reducing consumption. 5 Individual-level interventions have been Corresponding Author Contact: Brian Suffoletto. Iroquois Building, Suite 400A; 3600 Forbes Avenue; Pittsburgh, PA 15261. HHS Public AccessAuthor manuscript J Am Coll Health. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2017 August 01. Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author Manuscriptshown to produce small reductions in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems in general college student populations, 6 but exhibit diminished effects over time and may be less effective for mandated college students. 7In non-college settings, investigators have attempted to boost the effects of in-person alcohol interventions by incorporating booster sessions, either through letters, 8 face-to-face sessions, 9 or over the phone. 10,11,12 There have also been in-person boosters added to alcohol interventions in college settings, but little evidence of effect. 13 One potential explanation for sub-optimal effects may be the relatively low frequency of booster delivery. 14 A communication modality that may help boost effects of interventions for mandated students is mobile phone text messaging (e.g. short message service: SMS). SMS programs have been shown to be effective at reducing hazardous alcohol use in young adult emergency department populations as a stand-alone intervention, 15,16 and are beginning to be explored in college students. 17,18 To our knowledge, no study has reported on the implementation of an SMS program with college students who violate a campus alcohol policy.The present study analyzes anonymous da...

Gender Informed or Gender Ignored? Opportunities for Gender Transformative Approaches in Brief Alcohol Interventions on College Campuses

“…The intervention resulted in change behaviour, with participants reporting a decrease of binge drinking behaviour and reporting decreased binge drinking on weekends where they had committed to a weekend drinking goal. There were no gender differences in alcohol reduction [40].…”

“…Six of the studies were web-based or computerized [26][27][28][29][30]38] and two were mobile health interventions using smartphone applications (apps) [39] and short message service (SMS) [40]. All of the web-based and computerized interventions were validated and modeled on previously described and evaluated interventions [27][28][29]38].…”

“…Of the 21 studies included, 11 interventions included women only [7,27,28,[31][32][33]38,[41][42][43][44], one inclusive of males only [34], and nine were inclusive of both men and women [26,29,30,[35][36][37]39,40,45]. No studies identified other forms of inclusion beyond the gender binary or addressed other intersections of equity, such as race/ethnicity or sexual orientation.…”

Mobile Health Technology Using a Wearable Sensorband for Female College Students With Problem Drinking: An Acceptability and Feasibility Study

“…These ecological momentary interventions (EMI) deliver reminders, prompts, or strategies to students in the real world [13] and typically are delivered at specific (eg, daily) intervals [9] or at times that coincide with drinking episodes, such as weekends or during university events [14-16]. Few, however, are informed by behavioral change theories [17].…”

Developing Text Messages to Reduce Community College Student Alcohol Use

“…20 Use of text messages (TMs) may be especially useful in prompting use of PBS proximal to drinking occasions, when salience and uptake are likely to be higher. There are only a few studies that have tested TM-interventions for college students 21–23 and only one that focused on community college students. 24 Bock et al 24 randomly assigned 60 heavy drinking community college students to a TM condition where they received 6 TMs per week for 6-weeks: alcohol-information TMs or a control condition of general motivation TMs not related to alcohol use.…”