Brief Online Intervention to Reduce Heavy Alcohol Use Among Young Adult Veterans

描述(由申请人提供)：伊拉克和阿富汗战争中的年轻成年退伍军人代表了酗酒和酗酒问题的高危人群。不幸的是，很少有人因酒精问题寻求治疗，而那些确实寻求治疗的人可能会退出漫长的多组分治疗。此外，居住在农村地区的退伍军人和那些没有参与退伍军人事务医疗系统(VA)的退伍军人往往被忽视，难以进行治疗，而且可能没有积极寻求治疗可能发展为酒精使用障碍的重度使用模式。这项拟议研究的目的是开发并试点测试对年轻成年退伍军人进行的简短的单次酒精干预，以帮助他们减少饮酒并防止有问题的酒精使用的发展。招募和干预完全通过互联网进行，以解决在这些人中寻求护理的障碍 高危人群。在线干预包括一个更长的多成分动机增强干预的单一模块--个性化规范反馈(PNF)。PNF已经确立了对年轻成年大学生进行独立干预的有效性，但尚未在高危退伍军人群体中得到经验支持。PNF为个人提供准确的信息，以减少对危险同伴行为的频率和可接受性的误解。拟议的研究将分两个阶段进行，以实现以下目标：为便于获取、简短和吸引人的、适合年龄的在线PNF干预提供支持，该干预可惠及社区范围广泛的年轻成年退伍军人。第一阶段旨在收集800名年轻成年退伍军人的饮酒数据，以检查对同伴行为的看法与实际行为之间的关联，以记录哪些特定的看法对这一群体的行为最有影响。对第一阶段数据的检查将为第二阶段干预试点研究的内容提供信息，并帮助开发第二阶段干预试点研究，该研究将利用600名年轻成年退伍军人(300名PNF干预条件，300名对照条件)的样本来检查单次有针对性的PNF干预在减少感知规范、饮酒意图、实际饮酒行为和后果方面的有效性。这些退伍军人中的特定亚群，包括那些有心理健康问题的人，以及那些根据人口和军事特征、饮酒问题水平以及与同龄人的联系而区分出来的人，将被检查以支持干预的普遍性。这一干预措施有可能改善退伍军人的医疗保健，利用一种新的方法来增加获得护理的机会，帮助减少饮酒，并防止与酒精有关的问题。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Young adult veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan represent a population at-risk for heavy and problematic alcohol use. Unfortunately, few seek treatment for alcohol concerns and those that do seek care may drop out from lengthy multi component treatments. Additionally, veterans who live in rural areas and those who are not engaged in the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VA) are often overlooked, difficult to engage in treatment, and may not be actively seeking treatment for heavy patterns of use that may develop into an alcohol use disorder. The objective of this proposed study is to develop and pilot test a brief single-session alcohol intervention with young adult veterans to help them reduce their drinking and prevent the development of problematic alcohol use. Recruitment and intervention is delivered entirely over the Internet to address barriers to seeking care among this at-risk group. The online intervention consists of a single module of lengthier multi component motivational enhancement interventions -- personalized normative feedback (PNF). PNF has established efficacy as a stand-alone intervention with young adult college students, but has not yet been empirically supported for the at-risk veteran population. PNF provides individuals with accurate information to reduce misperceptions regarding the frequency and acceptability of risky peer behavior. The proposed study will consist of two phases to meet the goal of providing support for an easily accessible, brief and engaging, and age-appropriate online-based PNF intervention that can reach a wide range of young adult veterans in the community. Phase 1 is designed to collect drinking data among a sample of 800 young adult veterans to examine the associations between perceptions of peer behavior and actual behavior to document which specific perceptions are most influential on behavior within this group. Examination of the Phase 1 data will inform the content and help develop the Phase 2 intervention pilot study, which will utilize a sample of 600 young adult veterans (300 PNF intervention condition, 300 control condition) to examine the efficacy of a single-session targeted PNF intervention on reducing perceived norms, intentions to drink, actual drinking behavior, and consequences. Specific subpopulations of this veteran population, including those with mental health concerns and those differentiated by demographic and military characteristics, level of drinking problems, and connection to peers, will be examined to support generalizability of the intervention. This intervention has the potential to improve veteran health care by utilizing a novel approach to increase access to care, assist with drinking reductions, and prevent alcohol-related problems.