Personalized Boosters After a Computerized Intervention Targeting College Drinking: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Abstract

Problematic drinking among emerging adult college students is extensive. Computer-delivered interventions (CDIs) have strong appeal because they can be quickly delivered to large numbers of students. Although they are efficacious in the short term, CDIs are not as efficacious as in-person interventions longer term. This study examined the utility of emailed boosters containing personalized feedback after a CDI to enhance and extend reductions among emerging adult college drinkers. Sex and age were explored as potential moderators. Participants were 537 college students (67.4% female) aged 18 to 24years (M age=19.65, SD=1.67) who consumed at least 1 alcoholic drink in the past 2weeks. They were randomly assigned to CDI-only, CDI+booster email, or an assessment-only control condition, and were assessed up to 9months postintervention. A booster email with personalized feedback was sent to the CDI+booster email group 2weeks after completion of the CDI. Moderation findings for age revealed that the booster may be an effective means to strengthen and extend intervention effects for emerging adults who are of legal drinking age. However, effects were negligible for underage drinkers. Although the booster effect for the overall sample demonstrated a trend in the expected direction, it failed to reach significance. Booster effects were not significantly moderated by sex. Intervention effects were not moderated by either age or sex. The present investigation contributes to a limited body of research on boosters to augment main intervention effects in college drinkers. Our study demonstrated that a brief CDI plus a simple email booster with personalized feedback resulted in significant reductions in drinking outcomes for emerging adults of legal drinking age. Efforts to further develop and refine intervention booster strategies represent a promising future direction to minimize harmful drinking among college students.