Personalized Feedback After Alcohol Health Education for Members of Greek Life (GREEK Study)

Abby Braitman

Status and phase: Invitation-only; Phase 2; Phase 1

Conditions: College Student Drinking

Treatments: Behavioral: Delayed feedback booster; Behavioral: e-checkup to go

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05107284

K01AA023849 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

21-164

Details and patient eligibility

About

Heavy episodic alcohol use within the college student population is widespread, creating problems for student drinkers, their peers, and their institutions. Negative consequences from heavy alcohol use can be mild (e.g., hangovers, missed classes), to severe (e.g., assault, even death). Although online interventions targeting college student drinking reduce alcohol consumption and associated problems, they are not as effective as in-person interventions. Online interventions are cost-effective, offer privacy, reduce stigma, and may reach individuals who would otherwise not receive treatment. In a recently completed randomized, controlled trial, an emailed booster with personalized feedback improved the efficacy of a popular online intervention. A second randomized, controlled trial confirmed efficacy for students of legal drinking age for a longer timeline. Although promising, the booster incorporated in the study needs further empirical refinement.

The current project seeks to build on past progress by further developing and refining the booster. In particular, the current project is an extension of previous work by expanding the investigation into complete social networks (students involved in Greek life). This booster contains feedback about alcohol use tailored to the recipient, and will be emailed 2, 6, 10, and 14 weeks after baseline (experimental condition), or not at all (control condition). This study will be conducted specifically with students who are members of fraternities or sororities at ODU (specifically, those in the organizations that agree to participate). This population engages in heavy alcohol use so is ideal for an alcohol intervention. Members of fraternities and sororities (i.e., "Greek life") engage in more frequent drinking, consume more when drinking, and have higher peak drinking occasions than students not involved in Greek life. We aim to administer the intervention and associated booster among complete networks of Greek organizations to examine how the intervention and booster and progress through social networks.

Enrollment: 250 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participants must be at least 18 years old so that they can legally consent to participate.
• Participants must be an undergraduate student at the host institution and a member of a participating fraternitiy or sorority.

Exclusion criteria

• Under 18 years of age
• Not a member of a participating fraternity or sorority at the host institution.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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250 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Intervention-only Control

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants navigate through e-checkup to go, the well-established alcohol intervention. Any follow-up emails sent to them later contain only a reminder to participate in follow-up surveys.

Treatment:

Behavioral: e-checkup to go

Intervention plus delayed feedback booster

Experimental group

Description:

Participants navigate through e-checkup to go, the well-established alcohol intervention, then receive a series of feedback booster emails. It contains a reminder to participate in follow-up surveys, plus personalized feedback based on participant-reported perceived alcohol norms, actual alcohol norms, their own use, and harm reduction strategies.

Treatment:

Behavioral: e-checkup to go

Behavioral: Delayed feedback booster