Test of an online brief alcohol intervention aimed at drinkers in early adolescence and young adulthood

INTERVENTION: The web‐based brief alcohol intervention, referred to as www.watdrinkjij.nl, was developed by professionals of the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction (Trimbos Instituut). The trial testing its effectiveness was financed by The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research (ZonMw), the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction (Trimbos Instituut) and Radboud University Nijmegen. Participants are randomly assigned to one of the two intervention conditions or a control condition (no intervention). In the intervention conditions, participants receive one of two versions of this web‐based brief alcohol intervention, namely a version that does not include normative feedback or a version that does. Both versions of the web‐based brief alcohol intervention contain two parts, i.e. a questionnaire with items addressing participants' drinking patterns, drinking motives, and health risk status, and personalised feedback based on participants? answers to the earlier posed questions of the questionnaire including advice about moderate drinking. The advice for young adults aged 18 ‐ 20 years is in line with the guidelines of the Dutch National Health Council recommending that men should not drink more than 2 glasses alcohol per day and women 1 glass alcohol per day (Dutch National Health Council, 2009). Adolescents under the age of 16 receive advice to abstain from alcohol. Adolescents aged 16 ‐ 17 years are advised to abstain from alcohol and if they drink alcohol, they are recommended to drink moderately (not more than 1 or 2 glasses per occasion). The intervention duration is approximately 10 minutes. The feedback is tailored to participants? age (under 16, 16 ‐ 17 years of age, and 18+) and gender, and organised along four topics for the intervention‐without normative feedback group, and five for the intervention‐with normative feedback group. The following topics are addressed: 1. Personal drinking behaviour and related health risks 2. Drin CONDITION: Alcohol abuse ; Mental and Behavioural Disorders ; Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of alcohol SECONDARY OUTCOME: No secondary outcome measures. INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Participants are members of an online access panel 2. In the ages between 15 and 20 years, either sex 3. Participants have to fulfill criteria regarding binge drinking. For 15 to 16 year‐olds this means that they have to engage in binge drinking at least once a month. For 17 to 20 year‐olds, it means engaging in binge drinking at least once a week. PRIMARY OUTCOME: 1. Weekly alcohol consumption (number of glasses per week). This measure is assessed using the Dutch version of Weekly Recall. Participants are asked to indicate retrospectively for all past 7 days, how many standard units they consumed. For example: "Yesterday it was ? (fill out the name of the day) and I consumed ? standard units". To ensure standardised responses, we provide for various beverages an overview of standard units.; 2. Moderate drinking (0 = moderate drinking, 1 = no moderate drinking). Participants aged 15 ‐ 17 years are labeled 'moderate drinkers' if they consumed no alcohol in the past week. Boys in the ages between 18 to 20 years are regarded as moderate drinkers if they consumed less than 14 alcoholic drinks in the past week and same‐aged girls are regarded as moderate drinkers if they consumed less than 7 alcoholic drinks in the past week.