Abstract
Very-brief, web-based alcohol interventions have great potential due to their convenience, ease of dissemination, and college students’ stated preference for this intervention modality. To address the efficacy of these interventions, we conducted a review of the literature to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Fifteen published reports were included. All RCTs meeting criteria for inclusion tested an intervention that featured personalized feedback on students’ patterns of alcohol consumption. This review found some evidence to support the efficacy of very-brief, web-based interventions among college students for alcohol use reduction. Several trials, however, reported no evidence of efficacy and the methods of multiple trials raised concerns about potential bias that may have influenced study results. By contrast, this review did not yield evidence to support the efficacy of very-brief, web-based interventions for reduction of alcohol-related problems among college students. We found evidence to support the efficacy of two main types of intervention content: (a) focused solely on personalized normative feedback designed to correct misconceptions about peer alcohol consumption and (b) multi-component interventions. Future research is needed to test enhancements to very-brief, web-based interventions that feature personalized feedback on patterns of alcohol use and to determine for which types of college drinkers (e.g., heavier or lighter drinkers) these interventions are most efficacious. In addition, future studies are needed to test novel, very-brief, web-based interventions featuring approaches other than personalized feedback. In summary, this review yielded some evidence supporting very-brief, web-based interventions in reducing alcohol use but not related problems in college students. Very-brief, web-based interventions are worth pursuing given their convenience, privacy, and potential public health benefit.
Highlights
College student heavy drinking is a public health concern
Overview After removing reports from surveys and reviews of the literature, the updated review procedure yielded 88 studies published between early 2010 and September 2014. These studies were evaluated for inclusion in the present review, along with the 110 studies included in the three reviews by Larimer and Cronce for a total of 198 studies (Figure 1)
The present review yielded some evidence supporting the efficacy of very-brief, web-based interventions for college students in the reduction of alcohol consumption, though effect sizes tended to be small and several studies (k = 6) reported no intervention effects of 0.20 or greater compared to control
Summary
College student heavy drinking is a public health concern. Over 40% of full-time students report at least one past month heavy drinking day [1]. College students tend to have limited motivation to change their drinking behavior [4, 5] and rarely seek specialized services [6]. Meta-analyses and narrative reviews [8,9,10,11,12,13,14] have found that brief interventions are associated with significant reductions in college student drinking up to 6 months later, though effect sizes associated with these interventions tend to be small [15, 16]
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