Promoting Maintenance of Change Following Brief Intervention for Alcohol Use

Alcohol Drinking in College Clinical Trial

Official title:

Promoting Maintenance of Change Following Brief Intervention for Alcohol Use

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Not yet recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05712382
• Other study ID #: 2088
• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 2025
• Est. completion date: May 2026

Study information

• Verified date: February 2023
• Source: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Contact: Allecia Reid, PhD
• Phone: 413-545-0264
• Email: aereid[@]umass.edu
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

All students who enroll in the study will receive an efficacious counselor-delivered brief motivational intervention. The intervention is based in principles of motivational interviewing. Students complete a baseline assessment on their alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences. During the hour-long session, the counselor uses information from the baseline assessment to compare the student's level of alcohol consumption to that of peers at the same university, discuss choices that may lead to experiencing negative consequences, and provide opportunities for the student to set goals for risk reduction.

This study will develop and pilot a maintenance enhancement intervention. The intervention is expected to consist of four components, for example: (1) Student participants may learn to use techniques based in mindfulness to cope with negative emotions. (2) Student participants may identify barriers to reducing their alcohol use and identify protective strategies for navigating those barriers. (3) Student participants may be presented with narratives from other students who successfully resumed moderate drinking after a heavy drinking episode. Students may also be prompted to identify alcohol free activities that they enjoy and can engage in after experiencing a heavy drinking episode. (4) Parents may also receive a handbook encouraging communication with their student about alcohol use.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Enrollment: 160
• Est. completion date: May 2026
• Est. primary completion date: May 2026
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

Student participants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Currently enrolled student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

• First time violator of the university alcohol policy

• Mandated to complete the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) intervention

• Minimum age 18

Parent participants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• The parent or guardian of students who meet all of the student participant criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

• None.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Alcohol Drinking
• Alcohol Drinking in College

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Parent handbook
Handbook motivating parents to discuss alcohol use with their college student.
• Coping with negative emotions
Mindfulness-based techniques are taught to improve ability to cope with negative emotions.
• Problem-solving risky situations
Identifying and planning for barriers to change are encouraged.
• Recovering from slips
Peer and personalized techniques are discussed to facilitate resumption of moderate drinking after a heavy drinking episode.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Drinking Intentions	Drinking intentions will be assessed using a modified version of the daily drinking questionnaire (Young, Rodriguez, & Neighbors, 2013). Participants will complete a 7-day grid, indicating how many drinks they intend to consume on a typical Sunday, Monday, etc. in the next month. Responses will be summed to capture intentions for typical weekly drinking.	Immediate post-test
Primary	Coping motives	Thirteen items will be assessed capturing drinking to cope with both anxiety and depression (Cooper, 1994; Grant, Stewart, O'Connor, Blackwell, & Conrod, 2007). Items assess using alcohol "to reduce my anxiety" or "to forget my worries" and are rated on a 1 (almost never/never) to 5 (almost always/always) scale. Items will be averaged to form separate scale scores for coping with anxiety and coping with depression. The measure has been shown to be reliable among college students.	Immediate post-test
Primary	Parent-student communication	Five items will assess parents' intentions for engaging in general communication with their child about school, social activities, personal issues, romantic relationships, and personal problems (Barnes, Hoffman, Welte, Farrell, & Dintcheff, 2006). Items are rated on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (frequently) scale and averaged to form a scale score. This measure has been shown to be responsive to a parent-based intervention and reliable among college students (Testa, Hoffman, Livingston, & Turrisi, 2010).	Immediate post-test
Primary	Maintenance self-efficacy	Maintenance self-efficacy will be assessed with the 8-item Brief Situational Confidence Questionnaire (BSCQ; Breslin, Sobell, Sobell, & Agrawal, 2000). Student participants will indicate confidence in their ability to resist drinking heavily in eight situations, such as during pleasant times with others, (e.g., celebrating with a friend). Items are rated from 0% (not at all confident) to 100% (completely confident) and averaged to form a scale score. The measure is reliable and detects intervention-induced change among non-dependent young adults (Magill et al., 2017).	Immediate post-test
Primary	Recovery self-efficacy	Recovery self-efficacy will be assessed with nine items adapted from previous research (Luszczynska, Mazurkiewicz, Ziegelmann, & Schwarzer, 2007). One item will assess overall recovery self-efficacy and eight will mirror the situations used in the BSCQ . Items include, "I am confident that I could resume moderate drinking, even if I drank heavily because I was enjoying pleasant times with others." Like the BSCQ, items will be rated from 0% (not at all confident) to 100% (completely confident).	Immediate post-test