A longitudinal Study of Parent Communication with College Students about Alcohol

描述（由申请人提供）：目前的研究是一个新颖的研究项目的延续，该研究的重点是父母对大学生饮酒的影响。大学生饮酒仍然是一个重要的公共健康问题，越来越多的证据表明，年龄在21-24岁之间的大学生饮酒的后果越来越严重。研究表明，家长是综合社区预防工作的重要组成部分，作为一种独立的预防方法是有效的。尽管父母发挥了作用，但在大一之后的预防文献中存在显著的差距。此外，有一个小的文献告知预防工作涉及大学生的父母，他们倾向于检查有限数量的构念。虽然已经有针对青少年和大学生的父母干预的研究，但没有研究全面地考察了在整个大学经历中影响父母与大学生交流动机的变量。迄今为止，我们自己的研究项目主要集中在实施和评估针对典型新生、高风险新生和高风险环境的预防性家长干预措施。因此，对影响父母与子女沟通动机的潜在变量的研究，将提高未来干预工作的有效性和范围，以扩大大一以后的更多学生群体，这是我们研究项目继续的下一个合乎逻辑的步骤。在此范围内，本研究将纵向评估和分析整个大学经历中的1800对家长和学生，以检验：1)检验父母关于酒精沟通的预测因素和中介结构与父母-学生沟通相关的过程；2)考察关于酒精的家长-学生沟通预测学生饮酒中介构式和随后的学生饮酒结果的过程；3)在整个大学经历中，通过对父母沟通结构和学生饮酒结果的前瞻性纵向设计来检验发展变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The present study is a continuation of a novel program of research focusing on parental influences on college student drinking. College student drinking remains an important public health problem and there is growing evidence suggesting that consequences are increasing for older students aged 21-24. Research has shown that parents are an important part of comprehensive community prevention efforts and effective as a stand- alone prevention approach. Despite the utility of parents, a notable gap exists in the prevention literature after the freshman year. Further, there is a small literature to inform prevention efforts involving parents of college students and they tend to examine a limited number of constructs. Although there have been studies of parent interventions targeting adolescents and college students, no studies have comprehensively examined variables influencing parents' motivations to communicate with college students throughout their entire college experience. To date our own program of research has focused on implementing and evaluating preventive parent-based interventions for typical freshman, high-risk freshman, and high-risk environments. Thus, the examination of underlying variables influencing parents' motivations to communicate with their sons/daughters that will increase the efficacy and reach of future intervention efforts to larger population of students extending past the freshman year represents the next logical step in the continuation of our research program. To this extent, the research will assess and analyze 1800 parent-student dyads longitudinally across the entire college experience to examine the: 1) Examine the processes by which predictors and mediating constructs of parental communication about alcohol, are associated with parent-student communications; 2) Examine the processes by which parent-student communications about alcohol predict student drinking mediating constructs and subsequent student drinking outcomes; and 3) Examine developmental changes using a prospective longitudinal design between parent communication constructs and student drinking outcomes through the entire college experience. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: College student drinking remains an important public health problem and there is growing evidence suggesting that consequences are increasing for older students aged 21-24. Research has shown that parents are an important part of comprehensive community prevention efforts and effective as a stand-alone prevention approach. Despite the utility of parents, a notable gap exists in the prevention literature after the freshman year. Although there have been studies of parent interventions targeting adolescents and college students, no studies have comprehensively examined variables influencing parents' motivations to communicate with college students throughout their entire college experience. Thus, the examination of variables that influences parents' motivations to communicate with their sons/daughters to increase the efficacy and reach of future intervention efforts to larger population of students extending past the freshman year is warranted.