Personalized feedback interventions for college alcohol misuse: An update of Walters & Neighbors (2005).

Abstract

Personalized drinking feedback is an evidence-based and increasingly common way of intervening with high-risk college drinking. This article extends an earlier review by Walters and Neighbors (S. T. Walters & C. Neighbors, 2005, Feedback interventions for college alcohol misuse: What, why, and for whom? Addictive Behaviors, 30, 1168–1182) by reviewing the literature of published studies using personalized feedback as an intervention for heavy drinking among college students. This article updates and extends the original review with a more comprehensive and recent set of 41 studies, most of which were not included in the original article. This article also examines within-subject effect sizes for personalized feedback interventions (PFIs) for high-risk alcohol use and examines the content of PFIs more closely to provide insight on the most essential components that will guide the future development of feedback-based interventions. In general, PFIs appear to be reliably effective at reducing harmful alcohol misuse among college students. Some components are almost universally included (i.e., drinking profile and normative comparison), precluding inferences regarding their unique contribution. Significantly larger effect sizes were observed for interventions that included decisional balance, practical costs, and strategies to limit risks. The present research provides an important empirical foundation for determining the relative contribution of individual components and facets in the efficacy of PFIs.

Drinking games and contextual factors of 21st birthday drinking

“…Additional studies examining contextual influences for actual drinking occasions (e.g., celebrations, parties, holidays) are likely to reveal converging evidence for common and distinct contextual factors which can be incorporated into intervention efforts. There is still a considerable gap between contexts, specific events (e.g., 21st birthdays, Spring Break), and specific high-risk drinking behaviors (e.g., drinking games and pre-partying) and empirically-evaluated interventions, which tend to focus on drinking more generally (51,52). While it is hard to know what interventions may look like 10 or 15 years from now, it seems likely that innovations in technology and additional research on specific contexts, events, and drinking behaviors will facilitate interventions that are more individually tailored to target contextual risks, behaviors, and events in real time and in a user-friendly manner.…”

Measuring Protective Behavioral Strategies for Marijuana Use Among Young Adults

“…Interventions with empirical evidence for young adult alcohol use include a discussion of strategies to limit heavy and problematic use if one chooses to drink (Carey et al, 2007;Cronce & Larimer, 2011;Logan & Marlatt, 2010;Miller et al, 2013;Scott-Sheldon et al, 2014). Although the literature is less compelling regarding efficacious brief interventions for young adult marijuana users, the models that do exist incorporate some discussion of protective strategies Lee et al, 2010Lee et al, , 2013.…”

Processing of Alcohol-Related Health Threat in At-Risk Drinkers: An Online Study of Gender-Related Self-Affirmation Effects

“…Curbing excessive drinking among college students is a public health priority in a number of Western countries (O'Malley and Johnston, 2002). One approach involves making the negative consequences of excessive drinking more salient using brief feedback-based interventions (Miller et al, 2013). The efficacy of these interventions might be improved by integrating procedures that counteract the defensive processes outlined above.…”