Text Messaging as a Novel Alcohol Intervention for Community College Students

描述(申请人提供)：社区学院学生大量饮酒是一个严重的问题，使学生容易受到社会和健康损害、身体或性侵犯、意外伤害和死亡。然而，尽管社区大学生占全国大学生总数的近40%，但研究和治疗社区大学生的努力有限。社区大学生在种族、年龄、社会经济地位、生活状况、就业状况等方面存在差异。因此，成功的干预措施必须足够灵活，以适用于各种不同的个人特征和需求。不幸的是，有证据表明这一群体的需求尚未得到满足；社区大学的学生比四年制大学的学生更频繁地在酒精影响下开车，而且由于在校园里花费的时间较少，在他们的大学里进行面对面协调干预的机会更少。这项研究计划的长期目标是解决社区大学人群在治疗重度酒精使用方面的一个缺口。作为实现这一目标的第一步，这款R21应用程序将开发一种针对社区大学生的需求而量身定做的干预措施，它使用的移动通信平台已经被绝大多数社区大学生使用。采用这种方法，干预将是移动的，无论用户位于何处，都可以访问，并且能够根据个人特征进行定制。首先，我们将向焦点小组(4组，每组8名重度饮酒社区大学生)提供初步干预设计，并从关键信息者(顾问委员会)那里获得反馈。我们将利用这些小组的反馈来最终完成设计并开发一个工作原型。然后，我们将在重度饮酒的社区大学生(N=10)中进行为期六周的干预试点，以测试原型干预的可用性和可接受性。参与者将在项目结束时接受采访，以提供反馈并评估他们使用该系统的经验，内容专家将再次使用半结构化采访来评估原型。最后，我们将对40名酗酒社区大学生(N=40)进行为期6周的改良干预试验。这些参与者将被随机分配到干预计划或带有接触控制的标准干预(打印自助)中。评估将在治疗结束时进行，并在3个月和6个月随访时进行。这些数据将用于指导计划一项全面的临床试验，以测试干预措施在减少社区大学生危险饮酒方面的有效性和成本效益。 公共卫生相关性：大量饮酒是社区大学生的一个重大健康问题，他们占全国大学生总数的近40%。拟议的干预措施将使用短信为这一多样化的人群提供移动、个性化的治疗。为满足这一人群的需求而量身定做的有效干预措施，可能会对数百万因酗酒而面临高风险的美国人的健康产生重大影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Heavy alcohol use among community college students is a serious problem, leaving students vulnerable to social and health impairment, physical or sexual assault, unintentional injuries, and death. However, there have been limited efforts to research and treat community college students, despite these students comprising nearly 40% of all college students nationwide. Community college students are diverse in ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, living situation, and employment status. Thus, successful interventions must be sufficiently flexible to apply across a diverse array of individual characteristics and needs. Unfortunately, there is evidence of great unmet need among this group; community college students drive under the influence of alcohol more frequently than students at four-year colleges, and due to lesser time spent on campus, are less available for in-person interventions coordinated at their college. The long-term objective of this research program is to address a gap in the treatment of heavy alcohol use by the community college population. As a first step toward achieving that goal, this R21 application will develop an intervention that is tailored to the needs of community college students and which uses mobile communications platforms that are already used by the vast majority of this population. Taking this approach, the intervention will be mobile, accessible wherever the user is located, and able to be tailored to individual characteristics. We will begin by presenting out initial intervention design to focus groups (4 groups of 8 heavy drinking community college students) and obtaining feedback from key informants (advisory board). We will use feedback from these groups to finalize the design and develop a working prototype. We will then pilot the intervention among heavy drinking community college students (N=10) for six weeks to test the usability and acceptability of the prototype intervention. Participants will be interviewed at the end of the program to provide feedback and evaluate their experience with the system, and content experts will again evaluate the prototype using semi-structured interviews. Finally, we will pilot the modified intervention with heaving drinking community college students (N=40) for six weeks. These participants will be randomly assigned to either the intervention program or a standard intervention (print self-help) with a contact-control. Assessments will be conducted at end-of- treatment, and at 3 and 6 months follow up. These data will be used to guide the planning of a full-scale clinical trial to test the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the intervenion in reducing hazardous drinking among community college students. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Heavy alcohol use is a significant health problem for community college students, who comprise nearly 40% of all college students nationwide. The proposed intervention will use text messaging to provide mobile, individualized treatment for this diverse population. Effective interventions tailored to the needs of this population could have a major impact on the health of millions of Americans who are at high risk from the consequences of heavy drinking.