Abstract
BackgroundNegative affect plays an important role in motivating problematic alcohol use. Consequently, training imagery-based adaptive responses to negative affect could reduce problematic alcohol use. The current study tested whether personalised online functional imagery training (FIT) to utilise positive mental imagery in response to negative affect would improve drinking outcomes in hazardous negative affect drinking students.MethodParticipants were 52 hazardous student drinkers who drink to cope with negative affect. Participants in the active group (n = 24) were trained online over 2 weeks to respond to personalised negative drinking triggers by retrieving a personalised adaptive strategy they might use to mitigate negative affect, whereas participants in the control group (n = 28) received standard risk information about binge drinking at university. Measures of daily drinking quantity, drinking motives, self-efficacy and use of protective behavioural strategies were obtained at baseline and 2 weeks follow-up.ResultsThere were three significant interactions between group and time in a per-protocol analysis: the active intervention group showed increased self-efficacy of control over negative affect drinking and control over alcohol consumption and decreased social drinking motives from baseline to 2-week follow-up, relative to the control intervention group. There were no effects on drinking frequency.ConclusionThese findings provide initial evidence that online training to respond to negative affect drinking triggers by retrieving mental imagery of adaptive strategies can improve drinking-related outcomes in hazardous, student, negative affect drinkers. The findings support the utility of FIT interventions for substance use.
Highlights
Hazardous drinking is prevalent within the UK undergraduate population [1, 2]
The findings suggest that compared to the control group, the active group showed an increase in self-efficacy of control over negative affect drinking and consumption quantity and a greater decline in the belief that they would drink for social reasons from baseline to follow-up
As far as we are aware, the current study was the first to test whether a functional imagery training (FIT) intervention linking experience of negative affect to retrieval of mental imagery of adaptive strategies would reduce drinking frequency, drinking-related measures and psychiatric symptom severity, in hazardous, student, negative affect drinkers
Summary
Hazardous drinking is prevalent within the UK undergraduate population (defined as greater than 8 on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) [1, 2]. The theoretical objective is to link risk situations with the retrieval of alternative goal images, to promote behaviour change (i.e. increase abstinence) This therapeutic approach has been shown to reduce snacking [29] and maintain weight loss over time [30]. Therapeutic approaches akin to FIT have been shown to improve emotional self-regulation, reduce self-harming [31] and increase grit, the ability to persevere with work towards a goal in the face of challenges [32] These foregoing studies suggest that a FIT intervention focused on reducing reactivity to negative affect might have efficacy in attenuating negative affect motivated drinking behaviour [33], this prediction has not been tested directly. Because reductions in drinking quantity are generally not seen in short timeframes, it is more likely that intervention effects will be observed on drinking-related outcomes such as self-efficacy of control over negative affect drinking and related measures [3, 38]
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