A longitudinal Study of Parent Communication with College Students about Alcohol

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究是一个新的研究计划的延续，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卫生问题，越来越多的证据表明，21-24岁年龄较大的学生的后果正在增加。研究表明，父母是社区综合预防工作的重要组成部分，作为一种独立的预防办法是有效的。尽管父母的效用，一个显着的差距存在于预防文学后，大一。此外，有一个小的文献，以告知预防工作涉及大学生的家长，他们往往会检查数量有限的结构。虽然已经有针对青少年和大学生的父母干预的研究，没有研究全面检查变量影响父母的动机与大学生在整个大学的经验。到目前为止，我们自己的研究计划集中在实施和评估预防性的父母为基础的干预措施，为典型的新生，高风险的新生，高风险的环境。因此，检查潜在的变量影响父母的动机，与他们的儿子/女儿，将增加未来的干预工作的有效性和影响范围更大的人口的学生延长过去的大一代表了我们的研究计划的继续下一个合乎逻辑的步骤。在这个意义上，本研究将评估和分析1800个纵向的父母-学生在整个大学的经验，以检查：1）检查的过程中，预测和中介结构的父母沟通有关酒精，与父母-学生沟通;（2）检查父母的过程-学生关于酒精的交流预测学生饮酒中介结构和随后的学生饮酒结果;和3）通过整个大学经历，使用父母沟通结构和学生饮酒结果之间的前瞻性纵向设计来检查发展变化。

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.