Abstract
RationaleStudent-athletes are at risk for engaging in drinking games and pregaming. Research suggests that brief motivational and alcohol education intervention approaches designed to reduce harmful drinking behaviors may not be effective in lowering students’ participation in drinking games or pregaming. MethodWe evaluated the effects of myPlaybook (a student-athlete-specific web-based alcohol intervention) on student-athletes’ avoidance of drinking games and pregaming over a 4-month period. Seventy-three NCAA member institutions were randomly assigned to the treatment condition or a no-intervention control. Student-athletes at these schools (N = 2449) completed assessments at baseline, 1-, and 4-months post-intervention. At each assessment, participants indicated how often they used each of several harm prevention strategies when they drank in the past month including “avoided drinking games” and “avoided drinking before going out (i.e., pregaming or pre-drinking).” ResultsControlling for gender and race/ethnicity, treatment condition was not associated with change in avoidance of drinking games and pregaming between baseline and either follow-up. Athletic season did not moderate treatment effects on avoidance of either behavior. We found no evidence that myPlaybook, a general alcohol-reduction intervention, is efficacious in influencing student-athletes’ avoidance of drinking games or pregaming as a protective strategy. ConclusionsFindings from the present study as well as other research suggest that general alcohol-focused interventions may not have secondary effects on reducing students’ participation in drinking games and pregaming and as such, more specific targeted interventions should be investigated.
Highlights
Research robustly indicates that student-athletes consume higher amounts of alcohol and experience more harm from alcohol use than non student-athletes (Diehl et al, 2012; Kwan et al, 2014; Lisha and Sussman, 2010; Zhou and Heim, 2014)
We examined student-athlete data from a large multisite randomized controlled trial (RCT) of myPlaybook, a web-based alcohol intervention program created for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college student-athletes to reduce their risk for harmful drinking behaviors and related negative consequences. myPlaybook is a web-based, multicomponent skills-building intervention focused on the prevention of substance use by targeting risk and protective factors associated with risky drinking and related negative consequences
Our data set started with 5,860 participants but given that our study focused on past 30-day avoidance of drinking game (DG) and pregaming as a protective behavior strategy, we restricted the data analyses to only those who reported past 30-day alcohol use at baseline (n = 2,467)
Summary
Research robustly indicates that student-athletes consume higher amounts of alcohol and experience more harm from alcohol use than non student-athletes (Diehl et al, 2012; Kwan et al, 2014; Lisha and Sussman, 2010; Zhou and Heim, 2014). Social norms around alcohol use may influence student-athletes’ personal drinking behaviors in a way that differs from non student-athletes. Among student-athletes, they found that the strongest predictors of personal alcohol use were perceived norms of the typical student-athlete, followed by the typical student nonathlete (during the off-season only). They surmised that this may reflect the greater influence of distal (versus proximal) groups among the student-athletes in their sample. There is evidence suggestive that student-athletes differ from non student-athletes when it comes to their drinking behaviors, risk for negative drinking consequences, and to some extent, perceived norms around alcohol use. Continued alcohol research and intervention efforts among student-athletes are needed
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