An Incentive Approach to Reduce Alcohol Abuse At Parties

描述（由申请人提供）：这项为期两年的研究计划延续了我们十多年来减少大学生酒精滥用的尝试。我们已经测试了各种理论驱动的干预措施，包括a)教育学生关于他们对同伴饮酒规范的高估，b)向兄弟会派对的主人教授服务器干预，c)在派对环境中提供BAC反馈，d)在兄弟会派对上配备摊位以说明过度饮酒的负面后果。e)教参加派对的人简单的表演游戏，他们可以用在自己和他人身上，来评估自己是否严重受损，无法驾驶。尽管其中一些干预措施显著降低了自我报告的饮酒量和伴随的负面结果，但没有一项干预措施显著降低了聚会时实际血液酒精浓度（BAC）。拟议中的研究采用了一种完全不同的、直截了当的方法来减少兄弟会聚会上的过度饮酒。基于强化和控制饮酒的理论，我们对这种方法进行了初步测试，结果显示效果显著。具体来说，我们提出的激励/奖励技术综合测试将两个兄弟会聚会的平均BAC显著降低到。063 (n=86)；056 (n=91)，分别为基线平均值。092 (n=96)；102 （n=83）在同一兄弟会举行的两次前派对上。此外，激励/奖励干预减少了合法醉酒(BAC等于或大于。08名)，从基线党52名（54.2%）和52名（62.7%），到干预党26名（30.2%）和20名（22%）。激励/奖励干预只是让参加派对的人，如果他或她的BAC（在晚上11:30到凌晨12:30之间测量）低于0.05，就可以参加100美元的现金抽奖。提出了前测后测组随机试验方法（Murray, 1998），以证明一个特定的干预方案将在一些随机选择的兄弟会中有效。拟议的研究还评估了是否反复暴露于具有激励/奖励偶然性的当事方以将BAC保持在以下。05可以改变关于聚会饮酒的社会规范，并导致长期维持在兄弟会聚会上较低的醉酒程度。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This two-year research proposal continues our attempts for over a decade to reduce alcohol abuse among university students. We have tested a variety of theory-driven interventions, including a) educating students about their overestimation of peer drinking norms, b) teaching server intervention to the hosts of fraternity parties, c) providing BAC feedback in party settings, d) manning booths at fraternity parties to illustrate negative consequences of excessive alcohol consumption, and e) teaching partygoers simple performance games they can use on themselves and others to estimate whether they are too impaired to drive. Although some of these interventions influenced a significant reduction in self-reported alcohol consumption and concomitant negative outcomes, none influenced a significant reduction in actual blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at parties. The proposed research takes a completely different and straightforward approach to reducing excessive alcohol consumption at fraternity parties. Our pilot testing of this approach, based on theories of reinforcement and controlled drinking, showed remarkable effects. Specifically, the incentive/reward technique we propose to test comprehensively reduced mean BAC at two fraternity parties significantly to .063 (n=86) and .056 (n=91), respectively from baseline means of .092 (n=96) and .102 (n=83) at two prior parties held by the same fraternity. Moreover, the incentive/reward intervention reduced the number of partygoers who were legally drunk (BAC equal to or greater than .08) from 52 (54.2 percent) and 52(62.7 percent) at the two baseline parties to 26 (30.2 percent) and 20 (22 percent) at the two intervention parties. The incentive/reward intervention simply enabled partygoers to enter a $100 cash raffle if his or her BAC, measured between the hours of 11:30pm and 12:30am, was below .05. Pretest-posttest group randomized trial methodology (Murray, 1998) is proposed to demonstrate that a particular intervention package will be effective across a number of randomly selected fraternities. The proposed research also evaluates whether repeated exposures to parties with an incentive/reward contingency to hold BAC below .05 can change social norms with regard to party drinking and lead to long-term maintenance of lowered intoxication at fraternity parties.