AOD Misuse Clinical Trial
Official title:
Brief Online Intervention to Reduce Heavy Alcohol Use Among Young Adult Veterans
The primary objective of the research study is to test the feasibility of a brief Internet-based intervention to reduce heavy alcohol use among young adult veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans are recruited through the social media website Facebook in two phases. In the first phase, investigators collect data from 800 veteran participants to document and analyze drinking norms in this population. In the second phase, investigators use the norms collected in Phase 1 and information from the analyses to develop and pilot test an online intervention with young adult veteran participants. Six hundred participants are recruited through Facebook and randomly assigned to intervention (N = 300) or control (N = 300) conditions. It is hypothesized that those in the intervention condition will drink less at a one-month follow-up period than those in the control condition. Investigators also collect feedback from participants on the usability of the online intervention.
This study was conducted in two phases with the main goal of developing and testing a very
brief online program to reduce heavy alcohol use among young adult veterans in the United
States.
In the first phase, we examined how the social media website Facebook could be used to reach
veterans in the community for the intervention effort. Although veterans are an at-risk group
for heavy drinking and mental health problems, few seek care. Thus, we were able to document
that targeted Facebook advertisements can be used to reach out to veterans and provide them
with an alcohol reduction program that they likely would not have received otherwise.
In the second phase, we used the data we collected from participants in the first phase to
develop a personalized normative feedback intervention. This intervention was very brief and
online, and showed young veterans information to correct their misperceptions about the
drinking behavior of their peers. For example, in the intervention, young veterans would be
asked how much they believe other veterans like themselves drink alcohol. Then, they would
view information about veterans like themselves that showed them that other veterans do not
drink as much as they think they do. This is important because much research has documented
that perceptions about how much others drink is a major factor contributing to how much one
drinks themselves. Thus, correcting these misperceptions has been a primary strategy for
reducing drinking among young people. These norms correction strategies have mostly been
tested with college students or other non-veteran young adult groups, and when they have been
tested with veterans they have been tested within much lengthier, multicomponent
interventions. Our study was the first to test the norms correction strategy alone with young
veterans using an online design meant to reach veterans in the community through recruitment
on Facebook.
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