Social networks supportive of drinking are related to increased drinking rates among adult alcohol abusers. This has also been shown in college student drinkers, whose rates of drinking increase in relation to the presence of heavy drinking friends and environments. Indeed, rates of alcohol use substantially increase during the transition in adolescence from high school to college. Recognizing the importance of addressing social factors, a host of researchers have shown that involvement of significant others (e.g., spouses) in treatment for adult alcohol problems results in improved outcomes compared to individual-format treatment. However, few studies have examined the likelihood that treating adolescents and young adults with a nominated, gender-matched peer friend may improve alcohol abuse treatment outcomes. The long-range goal of this program of research is to enhance brief interventions for alcohol misuse and abuse among adolescents and young adults.
The specific aim of this proposal is to examine whether a brief motivational interview intervention enhanced by the presence of a supportive peer is superior to an individual motivational interview intervention in reducing alcohol use behaviors in college students. We propose to expand Motivational Interviewing, a brief intervention with demonstrated success in reducing adolescent and college alcohol use, to include dyads of gender-matched friends as a way to capitalize on the potential mediating variable of peer support on outcome. College students mandated for alcohol-related infractions will be recruited in dyads of friends and randomly assigned to one of three treatments: (1) Individual Motivational Interviewing (IMI); (2) Peer-Enhanced Motivational Interviewing (PMI); (3) Standard Education (SE). The effectiveness of the interventions will be determined by comparing self- report and collateral measures of alcohol use behaviors at follow up between groups at 1-, 3-, and 6-month follow-up assessments. To identify students who may garner more benefit from the peer-enhanced intervention, the effects of the following baseline variables will be examined: gender, level of alcohol dependence, level of peer affiliation and support, sensation seeking, and family history of alcohol abuse. By conducting this study, our aim is to enhance existing treatments for alcohol misuse and abuse by maximizing well-established peer influences.
| Tevyaw, Tracy O'Leary; Borsari, Brian; Colby, Suzanne M et al. (2007) Peer enhancement of a brief motivational intervention with mandated college students. Psychol Addict Behav 21:114-9 |
| Tevyaw, Tracy O'Leary; Monti, Peter M (2004) Motivational enhancement and other brief interventions for adolescent substance abuse: foundations, applications and evaluations. Addiction 99 Suppl 2:63-75 |
| Barnett, Nancy P; Tevyaw, Tracy O'Leary; Fromme, Kim et al. (2004) Brief alcohol interventions with mandated or adjudicated college students. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 28:966-75 |
| O'Leary, Tracy A; Brown, Sandra A; Colby, Suzanne M et al. (2002) Treating adolescents together or individually? Issues in adolescent substance abuse interventions. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 26:890-9 |
