Brief intervention for heavy and hazardous college drinkers in a student primary health care setting

Heavy drinking among college students remains a significant public health concern. Studies of a brief intervention for high risk college drinkers developed by Alan Marlatt and colleagues has produced promising results. This study sought to test the feasibility of a streamlined version of Marlatt's earlier work for high risk college drinkers in a student health center and to test the effectiveness of this intervention. Undergraduate students seeking services at a student health center were asked to complete the Multi-Media Assessment of Student Health (MMASH), an interactive computer program developed for purposes of this study. Students meeting criteria for heavy and hazardous drinking were invited to participate in the research program. A total of 340 student users participated in the MMASH screening. Of these, 88 were identified as high risk drinkers; 41 participants completed the screening procedure and were randomized to either a brief intervention or assessment-only control condition. Immediately following MMASH, experimental participants and their primary care provider received and discussed a computer-generated personalized feedback sheet that summarized the participant's drinking habits, risks, and encouraged moderate drinking. While no differences were observed on major alcohol outcome measures between experimental and control subjects at the one-month follow-up assessment, statistically significant treatment by time interactions were observed between experimental participants who were adequately exposed to the intervention verses those with less exposure. In addition, modest to large treatment effect sizes were observed on a measure of alcohol problems and binge drinking episodes favoring the brief intervention. A number of implementation obstacles that compromise the feasibility of conducting this intervention in a naturalistic setting were identified and described.