A Social Media Personalized Normative Feedback Intervention for Heavy Drinking College Students (SMASH)

Duquesne University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Alcohol Consumption

Treatments: Behavioral: Social media personalized normative feedback (SMPNF); Behavioral: Alcohol personalized normative feedback (APNF)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05608109

2022/05/12

R00AA025394 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study seeks to evaluate the unique and synergistic efficacy of social media-specific personalized normative feedback targeting the reduction of alcohol use among heavy-drinking college students who post alcohol-related content on social media.

Hypothesis: Alcohol personalized normative feedback, social media-specific personalized normative feedback, and the Alcohol personalized normative feedback+ social media-specific personalized normative feedback conditions will be more effective in reducing drinking than the attention control condition.

Enrollment: 401 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 26 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• College students recruited across three universities: Duquesne University, Miami University, and University of Houston (DU, MU, UH)
• Undergraduate college students 18 to 26 years old
• Meet heavy drinking (4+ drinks in one sitting for individuals assigned female at birth, 5+ drinks in one sitting for individuals assigned male at birth in the past month) and ARC (alcohol-related content) posting criteria (2+ ARC posts in the last 30 days for individuals assigned female at birth, 1+ for individuals assigned male at birth, on either Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, or TikTok)

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnant or of another protected population

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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401 participants in 4 patient groups

Alcohol personalized normative feedback (APNF)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will receive feedback about their consumption, what they think the average student at their university drinks, and actual drinking statistics at their university. Participants in this condition will participate in a baseline survey and afterwards will receive the feedback intervention. They will then complete follow-up surveys at 3-months and 6-months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Alcohol personalized normative feedback (APNF)

Social media personalized normative feedback (SMPNF)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will receive feedback about their consumption and alcohol related consumption posts, what they think the average student at their university drinks, and actual drinking statistics at their university. Participants in this condition will participate in a baseline survey and afterwards will receive the feedback intervention. They will then complete follow-up surveys at 3-months and 6-months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Social media personalized normative feedback (SMPNF)

Alcohol and social media personalized normative feedback (APNF + SMPNF)

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will go through the alcohol personalized normative feedback process and the social media personalized normative feedback. Participants in this condition will participate in a baseline survey and afterwards will receive the feedback intervention. They will then complete follow-up surveys at 3-months and 6-months.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Alcohol personalized normative feedback (APNF)

Behavioral: Social media personalized normative feedback (SMPNF)

Attention control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will receive feedback about their consumption of desserts, what they think their peers consume, and actual dessert consumption statistics are for individuals in their age group in the United States. Participants in this condition will participate in a baseline survey/feedback intervention. They will then complete follow-up surveys and feedback interventions at 3-months and 6-months.