When less is more: Short-Term efficacy of a gamified personalized normative feedback intervention for college students.

Despite various intervention efforts, college drinking remains a concern, and while personalized normative feedback (PNF) has proven effective, attempts to deliver it in a way that minimizes reactance and maximizes student engagement have been slow to emerge. This study examined the short-term effects of CampusGandr, a mobile gamified PNF intervention for college students. The game took place over 16 weeks (1 round per week) during the fall semester and included weekly PNF on various topics related to college life, including alcohol.

A longitudinal examination of factors predicting maternal permissiveness toward underage student drinking across the first three years of college.

Parental permissiveness of drinking is a reliable predictor of college drinking, but there is little known about factors that predict such permissiveness. This study seeks to examine factors that predict two potentially different facets of permissiveness: perceived general approval of alcohol use and perceived drinking limits. Additionally, we explored how these facets mediate the relationship between the predictors of permissiveness and subsequent college drinking and related consequences.

It's Not Just What Parents Say, It's Why They Say It: Students' Perceptions of Parents' Motives for Alcohol Communication.

Objective: Previous work has investigated parents' reports of motives for communicating with their young adults about alcohol. While parents' self-reported motives may predict intentions to communicate, young adults' perceptions of their parents' motives may be important for understanding young adults' responses to parent alcohol communication. The present study was conducted to explore college students' perceptions of their parents' motives for alcohol communication and to investigate whether perceptions of these motives predict changes in alcohol consumption and related consequences during the transition to college.

Changes in Parent-Student Text Message and Phone Call Communication During the Transition to College as Predictors of Cannabis and Simultaneous Use During the First Year.

Parent communication can be protective against cannabis use among young adults. However, changes in parent-student communication frequency naturally occur during the transition from high school to college. Recent research suggests declines in parent-student communication frequency predict increased drinking and consequences during the first year of college, yet these effects on other risky behaviors are unknown.

Process Evaluation and Investigation of Cultural Adaptations for an Online Parent-Based Intervention Using a Mixed-Method Approach.

Most alcohol intervention research focuses on program efficacy, yet few studies have investigated the acceptability of a program's design and implementation to the target population or adapting existing alcohol interventions to different populations. To address these gaps in the literature, we (1) examined participant responsiveness to and implementation quality of FITSTART+, a web-app delivered parent-based alcohol intervention designed for incoming first-year college students in the United States, and (2) gathered feedback on how this intervention could be adapted to other populations of parents. A sample of U.

Text Messages Conveying Parental Drinking Limits: A Potential Avenue for Preventing and Reducing Alcohol Use in College Students.

Objective: Although previous research has established that students who perceive that their parents have lower drinking limits on underage drinking consume less alcohol, optimal approaches for effectively communicating these limits are less understood. To address this gap in the literature, the present study examined the effects of hypothetical limit-focused text messages on estimated drinking behavior.

Method: Undergraduate college students ( = 253) completed an online survey in which they were instructed to imagine a scenario in which they were planning to go out at night to an event involving drinking.

Effects of the FITSTART + PBI on drinking and negative alcohol-related consequences during the first year of college.

This study evaluated FITSTART+, a parent-based intervention (PBI), for preventing risky drinking among first-year college students. Participants were traditional first-year students aged between 17 and 20. In total, 391 eligible students completed a baseline survey and their parents were then invited to use the FITSTART+ PBI or Control web-applications.

Do Changes in Parent-Student Phone Call and Text Message Communication During the Transition to College Predict First-Year Drinking and Consequences? A Prospective Study.

Objective: We examined (a) whether changes in parent-student phone call and text messaging communication during the transition into college are associated with alcohol use and related consequences, and (b) whether pre-matriculation drinking patterns predicted these changes in parent-student communication.

Method: First-year students ( = 246; age [] = 17.91 [0.

An examination of the associations between depressive symptoms, perceived parental discipline, alcohol use, and drinking-related consequences during the first year of college: A moderated mediation model.

Background: Depression is prevalent among adolescents and young adults and is associated with experiencing increased negative alcohol-related consequences; thus, it is imperative to identify malleable protective factors for alcohol risks in young adults experiencing elevated depressive symptoms. The current study longitudinally explored the effects of perceived parental alcohol-related discipline on the relationship between depressive symptoms, alcohol use, and negative drinking consequences during the transition into college.

Methods: Incoming college students ( = 272, 63.

"Let's Not Talk About It": Parents' Reasons for Not Discussing Alcohol Use With Emerging Adult Children.

Purpose: It is unclear why parents avoid discussing alcohol use with their emerging adult (EA) children. Understanding parents' reasons for not communicating could inform parent-based interventions (PBIs) aimed at encouraging constructive discussions. The current study adds to the literature by examining common reasons parents avoid discussing alcohol use with their EA children.

A Comparison of Parents' and Students' Reports of General and Alcohol-Specific Parenting Behaviors Across the Four Years of College.

Objective: Whether college students' reports of their parents' behaviors are as reliable a predictor of student drinking as their parents' own reports remains an open question and a point of contention in the literature. To address this, the current study examined concordance between college student and mother/father reports of the same parenting behaviors relevant to parent-based college drinking interventions (relationship quality, monitoring, and permissiveness), and the extent to which student and parental reports differed in their relation to college drinking and consequences.

Method: The sample consisted of 1,429 students and 1,761 parents recruited from three large public universities in the United States (814 mother-daughter, 563 mother-son, 233 father-daughter, and 151 father-son dyads).

A randomized controlled trial of an online alcohol and sexual risk prevention program for college students studying abroad.

Introduction: American college students who study abroad experience increases in their drinking behavior, concerning risky sexual behaviors, and high rates of sexual violence while abroad. Despite these concerns, institutions offer limited programming to students prior to departure to address these risks and no empirically supported interventions currently exist that are targeted toward preventing increased drinking, risky sexual behavior, and sexual violence abroad. To help address alcohol and sexual risk abroad, we designed a brief, single-session online predeparture intervention focused on risk and protective factors known to associate with alcohol and sexual risk abroad.

Injunctive and descriptive normative feedback for college drinking prevention: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

Objective: Single-component personalized normative feedback (PNF) interventions and multicomponent personalized feedback interventions (PFI) have been shown to reduce alcohol consumption among college students. The present study compared the efficacy of PNF interventions targeting descriptive norms alone (descriptive PNF), injunctive norms alone (injunctive PNF), or their combination (combined PNF), against a multicomponent PFI and an attention control condition.

Method: Undergraduates ( = 1,137) across two universities who reported a minimum of one past-month episode of heavy episodic drinking (i.

Taking alcohol from one's parents' home without permission as a risk factor for greater alcohol and marijuana use during the transition into college.

While adolescents and underage emerging adults typically obtain alcohol from social sources (e.g., parents, friends, parties), taking alcohol from the home without permission is not well understood.

Capturing the bigger picture: A gestalt of general and alcohol-specific social media usage during the transition to college as a predictor of first-year alcohol use and consequences.

Previous research has shown a reliable association between social media (SM) use and drinking among college students. However, most studies have investigated SM behaviors (e.g.

Systematic Bias in Self-Reported Social Media Use in the Age of Platform Swinging: Implications for Studying Social Media Use in Relation to Adolescent Health Behavior.

Public health researchers are increasingly interested in the potential relationships between social media (SM) use, well-being, and health behavior among adolescents. However, most research has assessed daily SM time via self-report survey questions, despite a lack of clarity around the accuracy of such reports given the current tendency of youth to access SM on multiple electronic devices and cycle between multiple SM platforms on a daily basis (i.e.

Exposure to interpersonal stigma enhances the effectiveness of a culturally adapted personalized normative feedback alcohol intervention for sexual minority women.

Stigma-related stress and inflated perceptions of substance use norms are positioned in the literature as theoretically distinct explanations for disproportionate substance use among sexual minorities. As research has yet to examine how these variables may interact in an intervention context, this study examined the impact of recent experiences with violence and harassment due to sexual minority status (i.e.

Evaluating Non-response Bias in a Parent-Based College Alcohol Intervention.

The purpose of this study was to address a dearth in the literature on non-response bias in parent-based interventions (PBIs) by investigating parenting constructs that might be associated with whether a parent volunteers to participate in a no-incentive college drinking PBI. Incoming first-year students (N = 386) completed an online questionnaire that included items assessing plausible predictors of participation in a PBI (students' drinking, perceptions of parents' harm-reduction and zero-tolerance alcohol communication, whether parents allowed alcohol, and changes in parents' alcohol rules). Four months later, all parents of first-year students at the study university were invited to join the PBI, which was described as a resource guide to teach them how to help their student navigate the college transition and prepare them for life at their university.

A Gamified Personalized Normative Feedback App to Reduce Drinking Among Sexual Minority Women: Randomized Controlled Trial and Feasibility Study.

Background: Sexual minority women disproportionately engage in heavy drinking and shoulder the burden of alcohol dependence. Although several intensive interventions are being developed to meet the needs of treatment-seeking sexual minority women, there remains a lack of preventive interventions to reduce drinking and its consequences among women not yet motivated to reduce their alcohol consumption.

Objective: We aimed to examine the feasibility and efficacy of reducing alcohol-related risks via personalized normative feedback (PNF) on alcohol use and coping delivered within LezParlay, a social media-inspired digital competition designed to challenge negative stereotypes about lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ)-identified sexual minority women.

Do the effects of parent-based alcohol interventions depend on college residence? A short communication.

Parent-based interventions (PBIs) and living at home with one's parents both have been shown to mitigate alcohol risk associated with the first year of college. The current study extends these findings by examining the independent and interactive effects of these two constructs on first-year drinking. The sample included 82 parent-student dyads.

Assessing parents' motives for talking about alcohol with their emerging adult children.

Past research has explored the content and frequency of alcohol-specific communication between parents and their emerging adult children. The current study aimed to address a gap in the research by examining parents' motivation for discussing alcohol. To accomplish this, we developed a multidimensional Parent Motives for Alcohol Communication Scale (PMACS).

"Follow my Finsta": Drinking trajectories in relation to auxiliary Instagram accounts.

Objective: This study explored the burgeoning youth practice of possessing a fake, secondary Instagram account known as a "Finsta" in relation to exposure to alcohol-related content and college drinking.

Participants: First-year university students with at least a primary Instagram account ( = 296) completed online surveys.

Method: Surveys assessed whether participants did or did not have a Finsta pre-matriculation (T1), Instagram alcohol content exposure one month into college (T2), and alcohol use at T1 and near the end of the first year (T3).

Integrating social media inspired features into a personalized normative feedback intervention combats social media-based alcohol influence.

Backround: Research suggests that the social media platforms popular on college campuses may reflect, reinforce, and even exacerbate heavy drinking practices among students. The present study was designed to directly examine: (1) whether exposure to alcohol-related content on social media diminishes the efficacy of a traditional web-based personalized normative feedback (PNF) alcohol intervention among first-year drinkers; and (2) if social media inspired features and digital game mechanics can be integrated into a PNF intervention to combat social media-based alcohol influence and increase efficacy.

Method: Alcohol experienced first-year college students (N = 223) completed a pre-survey that assessed exposure to alcohol-related content and social media and were randomized to 1 of 3 web-based alcohol PNF conditions (traditional, gamified only, or social media inspired gamified).

Sexual violence victimization among American college students studying abroad.

Research has just begun to identify American college students who study abroad as a group at-risk for sexual violence victimization. The purpose of the current study was to examine the context of these incidents. We utilized a large longitudinal sample of 2,428 United States college students studying abroad for between 4 and 21 weeks in 12 different foreign countries.

Prospective Relationships Between Objectively Assessed Social Media Use, Drinking Norms, and Alcohol Consumption Among First-Year Students.

Objective: Previous research has linked social media involvement and alcohol use among college students. However, this literature has been limited by self-report measures of social media use, cross-sectional data, inadequate attention to potential moderators and mediators, and unclear implications for interventions. To improve and extend this work, students' (N = 297) daily time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat during the transition into college were assessed objectively and examined as predictors of later drinking.