Using Counter Attitudinal Advocacy to Change Drinking Behavior

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Alcohol Abuse
Alcohol Drinking

Interventions: Behavioral: Counter Attitudinal Advocacy
Behavioral: Personalized Normative Feedback

Registration Number: NCT04042909

Lead Sponsor: Brown University

Brief Summary: High volume drinking by young adults has proven resistant to change, so new approaches are needed. We adapt a theory-based attitude change strategy for use in alcohol prevention. This research tests the impact of brief writing and advocacy activities 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. Many prevention interventions rely on a primary mechanism of change: correcting exaggerated drinking norms. We propose to test a novel prevention strategy targeting another mechanism of change: creating attitude-behavior dissonance. To date, attitude change activities have not been harnessed as a behavior change strategy for alcohol abuse prevention, so this study adapts counter-attitudinal advocacy (CAA) to the alcohol prevention context. The goals of the proposed research are to demonstrate (a) the utility of CAA to change high volume drinking and related consequences, (b) that attitude change and attitude-behavior dissonance mediates the CAA manipulation effect, and (c) that CAA-induced risk reduction is not inferior to an established intervention based on Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF). A pair of studies will be implemented across two sites. First surveys to document peer behaviors and normative perceptions (N = 500 at each site) will be conducted, in order to deliver accurate, campus-specific PNF. The next study consists of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 2 experimental conditions (CAA and PNF) and a 3rd assessment only control condition to determine the impact of CAA on alcohol outcomes. For the RCT, a total of 600 heavy drinking students who have endorsed alcohol-related negative consequences will be recruited. Alcohol outcomes will be assessed at 1-, 3-, and 6-month follow-ups to test hypotheses that, relative to assessment only control, the CAA manipulation will decrease alcohol consumption and consequences. We will also test the hypothesis that CAA condition will be no less efficacious than (i.e., not inferior to) the PNF condition. The RCT also allows tests of hypotheses about effect moderators and mediators. This study will demonstrate the generalizability of CAA activities to the alcohol prevention context, as well as their generalizability across demographically different settings. Implications for the public health include establishing the efficacy of a new approach for reducing high volume drinking and related consequences among young adults.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 591

Inclusion Criteria

Age 18-26
Male or female student at Brown University or University of Houston
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 consequences from drinking in the past month

Exclusion Criteria

status as a second semester Senior

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Counter Attitudinal Advocacy	Counter Attitudinal Advocacy	Participants in this arm will articulate ways to avoid alcohol-related consequences using self-generated protective strategies and publicly state those strategies.
Personalized Normative Feedback	Personalized Normative Feedback	Participants in this arm will view personalized normative feedback regarding their 1) own drinking quantity and frequency of drinking, 2) perceptions of typical drinking by same-sex students' on campus (i.e., perceived descriptive norms), and 3) actual drinking rates by same-sex students' on campus (i.e., actual descriptive norms).

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Drinks Per Week as Assessed by the Daily Drinking Questionnaire	6-month follow up	Number of standard drinks consumed in a typical week over the past 30 days; scores can range from zero but have no upper limit as they are counts of drinks
Alcohol-related Consequences as Assessed by the Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire	6-month follow up	The Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire is a checklist of 48 different consequences that could be experienced over the past 30 days; the total score ranges from 0-48; higher scores indicate more problems experienced in the past 30 days

Secondary Outcome Measures