Development and Pilot Trial of an Intervention to Reduce Disclosure Recipients Negative Social Reactions and Victims Psychological Distress and Problem Drinking
Phase: NA
Conditions: Social Skills, Self-Criticism, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Alcohol Abuse, Drinking, College, Alcohol Drinking, Alcohol; Harmful Use, Social Stigma, Social Norms, Social Responsibility, Social Behavior, Empathy, Coping Skills, Coping Behavior
Sponsor: University of New Hampshire

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Study Protocol for: 
Development and Pilot Trial of an Intervention to Reduce Disclosure Recipients Negative Social 
Reactions and Victims Psychological Distress and Problem Drinking  
NCT03488927 
 
Last approved August 25, 2020 
 
Contents:  
Study Protocol 
 
 

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Research Design 
 
Participants were assigned to either the treatment condition or the wait-list control 
condition. Because a large number of participants (n = 531; 63.50% of participants invited) who 
were assigned to the treatment condition did not attend the actual intervention, we created three 
groups for the purposes of analyses: control (n = 432), treatment attender (Tx-Attender; n = 305), 
treatment non-attender (Tx-Nonattender; n = 531).  
Procedures 
The study took place at a residential, medium-size public university in the northeastern 
United States and received approval from the university’s Institutional Review Board. The 
university’s Dean of students sent emails to randomly selected, full-time, undergraduate students 
between the ages of 18 and 24 on the behalf of the researchers. These emails (initial and two 
reminders) were sent via mass email to 7,000 students in four batches across four weeks in the 
fall of 2018. We also sent an email from the research team to all professors at the University with 
classes greater than 60 students (n = 205 professors), as identified by the course catalog. Lastly, 
we posted fliers in residence halls and other shared spaces about the study.  
Overall, 1,831 students started the baseline survey, of whom 1,268 consented to and 
completed the survey. Of our final 1,268 participants, 78.4% (n = 994) were recruited via official 
email from the Dean of students, 14.4% (n = 183) were recruited via a friend (i.e., a friend 
forwarded the study information), 4.9% (n = 62) were recruited via professors, 1.3% (n = 16) 
were recruited via fliers, 0.6%  (n = 8) were recruited via the website, and 0.4% (n = 5) were 
recruited in another way (e.g., “Facebook”). Qualtrics randomized participants into intervention 
and control groups. Participants were initially randomized at a 50/50 rate to the intervention and 
control conditions. However, we found that rates of intervention attendance were lower than 

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expected. Thus, in order to achieve desired numbers of intervention participants, when we 
reached over 400 in the control group, we began assigning 100% of participants who were 
randomly selected to be emailed to the intervention group. Because participants were recruited 
via professors and fliers were not randomly selected, these participants were randomized 50/50. 
Thus, 65.9% of participants were assigned to the intervention (n = 836) and 34.1% were assigned 
to control (n = 432). Participants randomized into the intervention group were invited to attend 
the intervention, which was conducted in two sessions (initial session and booster session). 
Initial session attendance was 36.2% (n = 303); of those, 83.1% (n = 252) attended the booster. 
Participants first completed the baseline survey (Time 1). An average of two weeks later, 
those in the intervention group participated in the first intervention session. The follow-up survey 
(Time 2) occurred 6 months after the first intervention session, and, for control participants, 6 
months and 2 weeks after their baseline survey (to ensure receipt of email at times comparable to 
intervention participants). We sent participants up to eight total text, email, and call reminders to 
remind them of the Time 2 survey. Of the 1,268 baseline participants, 70.1% (n = 889) 
completed the Time 2 survey, including 314 in the control condition and 575 in the intervention 
group. Participants received $15 and $25 gift cards for completing Time 1 and 2, respectively. Of 
the 305 participants who attended the first session, 252 (82.6%) attended the booster session. 
Participants also received reminder texts, emails, and calls to remind them about the initial and 
booster sessions; they received up to five of these reminders.