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NCT Number: NCT05712382

Promoting Maintenance of Change Following Brief Intervention for Alcohol Use

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.

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Key information

Conditions

Alcohol Drinking in College Alcohol Drinking Behavior Drinking Behavior

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

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.

Treatment and study plan

parent handbook

Behavioral

Handbook motivating parents to discuss alcohol use with their college student.

Coping with negative emotions

Behavioral

Mindfulness-based techniques are taught to improve ability to cope with negative emotions.

Problem-solving risky situations

Behavioral

Identifying and planning for barriers to change are encouraged.

Recovering from slips

Behavioral

Peer and personalized techniques are discussed to facilitate resumption of moderate drinking after a heavy drinking episode.

Primary outcomes

  1. Drinking Intentions

    Time frame: Immediate post-test

    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.

  2. Coping motives

    Time frame: Immediate post-test

    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.

  3. Parent-student communication

    Time frame: Immediate post-test

    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).

  4. Maintenance self-efficacy

    Time frame: Immediate post-test

    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).

  5. Recovery self-efficacy

    Time frame: Immediate post-test

    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).

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Allecia Reid, PhD

CONTACT

[email protected]

413-545-0264

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Other

Registry information

Important dates

Study start
2026
Primary completion
2027
Study completion
2027
First posted
Feb 3, 2023
Registry last updated
Apr 15, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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