Attitudes & College Experiences

Alcohol Abuse Clinical Trial

— ACE  

Official title:

Using Counter Attitudinal Advocacy to Change Drinking Behavior & Related Problems

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04026633
• Other study ID #: R21AA025676
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: April 10, 2019
• Est. completion date: April 30, 2022

Study information

• Verified date: August 2022
• Source: Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

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.

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.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 134
• Est. completion date: April 30, 2022
• Est. primary completion date: April 30, 2022
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 26 Years

Eligibility

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

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Alcohol Abuse
• Alcoholism

Intervention

Behavioral:
• CAA
Participants will write about the use of PBS and alcohol use.
• Control
Participants will write about eating and exercise.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Brooklyn College	Brooklyn	New York

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Change in Alcohol Consumption from Baseline to 1-Month	Average of reports from past 30 days on the number of standard drinks consumed by participant over the past 30 days.	1 month after baseline
Primary	Change in Alcohol-related consequences from Baseline to 1- and 3-Months	The Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (BYAACQ) (Kahler et al., 2005) is a 24-item self-administered checklist of problems related to drinking; responses are dichotomous (yes/no) and refer to the past month which was collected at baseline and 5-months. The BYAACQ demonstrates strong psychometric properties and is free of gender bias (Kahler et al., 2005).	1 month and 3 months after baseline