Attitudes & College Experiences (ACE)

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Status: Completed

Conditions: Alcohol Abuse

Treatments: Behavioral: Control; Behavioral: CAA

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04026633

R21AA025676

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Full 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.

Enrollment: 134 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 26 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

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

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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134 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Experimental: Enhanced Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants assigned to this arm will complete a personal writing task about alcohol use.

Treatment:

Behavioral: CAA

Placebo Comparator

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants assigned to this arm will complete a personal writing task about eating behaviors.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Control