Parent Intervention to Reduce College Student Drinking and Consequences

Summary

College students' alcohol use continues to be a major public health problem. Among the many consequences of this risky behavior are impaired driving and impaired passenger fatalities. Both college health administrators and parents have requested parent-based interventions (PBIs), and parents have demonstrated ample motivation to communicate with their teens. The proposed research will attempt to enhance an existing effective PBI, curb the alarming trends noted in the literature, and move the field forward by conducting a randomized controlled trial testing a modified version of the PBI that includes additional content for parents to establish clear lines of communication around the important topic of permissiveness (referred to as P-Chat).

Conditions

• Underage Drinking
• Driving Under the Influence
• Drinking, Teen
• Drinking, College

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

P-Chat

The P-Chat is a brief individually delivered intervention based on the principles of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and focuses on increasing parents' motivation to reduce permissiveness toward underage alcohol use while reducing defensiveness and barriers to implementing these rules with their teen.

BEHAVIORAL

PBI

The PBI is currently a model prevention resource at NIAAA's College Alcohol Intervention Matrix and the research was discussed in the most recent Surgeon General's Report as one of the two prevention approaches that met the rigorous criteria to be considered "efficacious". The first section of the PBI provides an introduction to the problem of substance use. The second section focuses on specific skill building strategies that parents can use to improve communication channels with their teen. Third, is a section that addresses peer influence and provides strategies for developing assertiveness. The fourth section is an in-depth discussion of underage drinking, physiological and psychological effects, mixing alcohol with other drugs, motives for why students drink and don't drink, warning signs, risky binge-type drinking, impaired driving, riding with impaired drivers, alcohol and sexual assault, and how to communicate about parents' experiences when they were young.

BEHAVIORAL

P-Chat+

The P-Chat+ is a combination of the P-Chat and PBI described above. Parents in this arm of the study will receive both interventions.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institutes of Health (NIH)

  collaborator NIH

• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

  collaborator NIH

• Penn State University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Robert Turrisi, PhD · Penn State University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

19 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-06-14

Primary Completion

2025-04-16

Completion

2025-04-16

Countries

• United States

Study Locations