Attitudes & College Experiences

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Alcohol Abuse
• Interventions: Behavioral: Control; Behavioral: CAA

• Registration Number: NCT04026633
• Lead Sponsor: Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Brief Summary

High volume drinking by young adults has proven resistant to long term change, so new approaches are needed. Given strong associations between alcohol-related attitudes and drinking behavior, the investigators adapt a theory-based attitude change strategy for use in alcohol prevention. This research tests the impact of a brief counter attitudinal advocacy activity on subsequent drinking and negative consequences.

Detailed Description

The persistence of risky drinking among young adults in college calls for continued efforts to prevent harms related to alcohol. Current prevention interventions have achieved some success, but rely on a single mechanism of change: correcting exaggerated drinking norms. The investigators propose to test a novel prevention strategy targeting another mechanism of change: creating attitude-behavior dissonance. To date, changing alcohol-related attitudes and the resulting attitude-behavior discrepancy has been underutilized as a behavior change strategy for alcohol abuse prevention. Informed by an extensive literature showing strong and consistent associations between alcohol attitudes and drinking behavior, the investigators adapted a brief counter-attitudinal advocacy (CAA) manipulation to the alcohol prevention context.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2019-04-10
• Study First Submitted: 2019-07-11
• Study First Submitted QC: 2019-07-17
• Study First Posted: 2019-07-19
• Primary Completion: 2022-04-30
• Study Completion: 2022-04-30
• Status Verified: 2022-08
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-08-03
• Last Update Posted: 2022-08-05

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 134

Inclusion Criteria

• 18-24 years of age
• Enrolled in the university's undergraduate four-year degree program
• Past month heavy episodic drinking (for men, >5 drinks in one day, for women >4 drinks in one day)
• At least two self-reported negative consequence from drinking in the past month

Exclusion Criteria

• Status as a graduating senior

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Placebo Comparator	Control	Participants assigned to this arm will complete a personal writing task about eating behaviors.
Experimental: Enhanced Intervention	CAA	Participants assigned to this arm will complete a personal writing task about alcohol use.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in Alcohol Consumption from Baseline to 1-Month	1 month after baseline	Average of reports from past 30 days on the number of standard drinks consumed by participant over the past 30 days.
Change in Alcohol-related consequences from Baseline to 1- and 3-Months	1 month and 3 months after baseline	The Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (BYAACQ) (Kahler et al., 2005) is a 24-item self-administered checklist of problems related to drinking; responses are dichotomous (yes/no) and refer to the past month which was collected at baseline and 5-months. The BYAACQ demonstrates strong psychometric properties and is free of gender bias (Kahler et al., 2005).

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Brooklyn College; 🇺🇸 Brooklyn, New York, United States