Secondary Prevention of Alcohol Dependence and Depression Among College Students

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary: Alcohol dependence and major depression represent two major sources of distress and disability among college students. Risks for the development of these disorders include hazardous drinking and elevated depressive symptoms respectively, both of which are experienced by a large proportion of college students and place them at risk for a variety of negative academic and interpersonal consequences. Hazardous drinking and elevated depressive symptoms not only increase the risk for the development of alcohol dependence and major depression but also have reciprocal influences on one another in the development, maintenance, and recurrence of these disorders. Finally, hazardous drinking students with elevated subclinical depression symptoms exhibit distinct cognitive motivational characteristics that may influence their ability to change. Given the frequent co-occurrence of elevated depressive symptoms and hazardous drinking, there are a number of advantages to addressing both of the issues in an integrated intervention. The current project seeks to develop a short-term (3-session) intervention to address these objectives. Specifically, this proposal seeks to: (1) develop an integrated short-term secondary prevention approach for alcohol dependence and major depression for college students at risk for these disorders, and (2) conduct a pilot trial to determine effect size estimates of the efficacy of the intervention. During the first phase (Stage 1A) the intervention will be developed and pilot tested with 8 hazardous drinking college students who exhibit mild to moderate depressive symptoms. For the pilot trial (Stage1B), participants will be assigned to either a short-term intervention that is based on systematic motivational counseling (Cox & Klinger, 2004) or an Assessment Only control condition. Alcohol outcomes, depressive symptoms, and hypothesized change processes will be assessed at baseline, 3 and 6 months. Results of this work will provide the basis for a randomized controlled trial to examine the efficacy of this new intervention to prevent the development of alcohol dependence and major depression.