EARLY INTERVENTION TO PREVENT STUDENT BINGE DRINKING

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The present research will develop and evaluate an intervention strategy designed to reduce the onset and extent of binge drinking in students during their first year of college. The approach taken is relatively novel in that the focus of the intervention is on influencing binge drinking behavior of the students before they come to college, through their parents, during the critical time between high school graduation and the beginning of college. Almost all current approaches in the binge drinking domain are based on implementing an intervention while the students are at college. By contrast, the present approach attempts to reach students just before they come to college, so as to make them more resistant to influences that encourage the adoption or continuation of binge drinking behaviors. Specifically, we intend to educate parents about the problem of binge drinking and to encourage them to talk with their teen about these issues just before the teen embarks on his or her college education. Past research of has identified information and perspectives that we believe parents can convey to their children that will ultimately reduce college binge drinking. Thus, the research will develop an intervention to teach parents how to convey information about binge drinking to their teenage sons and daughters just prior to their entering college that will reduce the onset of binge drinking in college; Evaluate the efficacy of the intervention; and Identify demographic and psychological profiles of parents and students for whom the intervention seems to be relatively successful versus those for whom the intervention is relatively ineffective.