Brief interventions that encourage college students to cut back on bingeing and other dangerous drinking habits may work better in women than men, a new study suggests.
After the students provided information on their drinking habits in periodic surveys, they received personalized letters containing preventive messages about risky drinking behaviors. Women who received the letters were significantly more likely to cut back on their drinking with each letter received.
However, the intervention did not have any affect on men’s drinking habits, according to Robert LaForge, Sc.D., of the University of Rhode Island.
The LaForge study, along with others published in the February issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, suggests brief counseling can be an effective way of preventing high-risk drinking among young adults.
“Research suggests these effects persist months and even years after encounters consisting of as little as five minutes of advice to reduce consumption,” Mary Larimer, Ph.D. of the University of Washington says.
These interventions probably work best in youth who may have risky drinking habits but are not alcoholics, which would include most college students, according to John B. Saunders, M.D., of the University of Queensland, Australia.
Despite the success of these programs, “a great number of campuses still lack the financial and personnel resources to implement such interventions on a large scale,” Scott Walters, Ph.D. of the University of Texas School of Public Health says.
Walters and Kypros Kypri, Ph.D. of the University of Otago in New Zealand say the problem might be eased somewhat by the use of computerized screening and feedback. Students say they prefer getting the information from an electronic source rather than from a doctor or counselor.
Researchers are still debating the details of these interventions. For instance, few agree on how brief an intervention can be and still work. And questions remain about how often interventions should be repeated and whether there is a key set of “active ingredients” in all successful interventions.
“Results of recent research are promising, and the outlook for prevention and intervention with high-risk drinkers is considerably more optimistic now than it was a decade ago, but there is still a lot we don’t know about brief interventions,” Larimer concludes.
The studies were supported by the Health Research Council and Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand, the Harold Richardson Trust and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism.
- Health Behavior News Service
Articles in The Science of Mental Health are written by the originating institution. This article was originally posted to Newswise.
