Clinical trial NCT05107284: Personalized Feedback After Alcohol Health Education for Members of Greek Life (GREEK Study)
Official title: Personalized Feedback After Alcohol Health Education for Members of Greek Life (GREEK Study)
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: PHASE1
PHASE2
Conditions: College Student Drinking
Lead sponsor: Old Dominion University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
First posted: 2021-11-04
Enrollment: 250
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Heavy episodic alcohol use within the college student population is widespread, creating problems for student drinkers, their peers, and their institutions. Negative consequences from heavy alcohol use can be mild (e.g., hangovers, missed classes), to severe (e.g., assault, even death). Although online interventions targeting college student drinking reduce alcohol consumption and associated problems, they are not as effective as in-person interventions. Online interventions are cost-effective, offer privacy, reduce stigma, and may reach individuals who would otherwise not receive treatment. In a recently completed randomized, controlled trial, an emailed booster with personalized feedback improved the efficacy of a popular online intervention. A second randomized, controlled trial confirmed efficacy for students of legal drinking age for a longer timeline. Although promising, the booster incorporated in the study needs further empirical refinement.

The current project seeks to build on past progress by further developing and refining the booster. In particular, the current project is an extension of previous work by expanding the investigation into complete social networks (students involved in Greek life). This booster contains feedback about alcohol use tailored to the recipient, and will be emailed 2, 6, 10, and 14 weeks after baseline (experimental condition), or not at all (control condition). This study will be conducted specifically with students who are members of fraternities or sororities at ODU (specifically, those in the organizations that agree to participate). This population engages in heavy alcohol use so is ideal for an alcohol intervention. Members of fraternities and sororities (i.e., "Greek life") engage in more frequent drinking, consume more when drinking, and have higher peak drinking occasions than students not involved in Greek life. We aim to administer the intervention and associated booster among complete networks of Greek organizations to examine how the intervention and booster and progress through social networks.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Participants must be at least 18 years old so that they can legally consent to participate.
* Participants must be an undergraduate student at the host institution and a member of a participating fraternitiy or sorority.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Under 18 years of age
* Not a member of a participating fraternity or sorority at the host institution.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Alcohol consumption
timeFrame: past 30 days
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Alcohol-Related Consequences
timeFrame: past 30 days
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Norfolk
country: United States
facility: Old Dominion University
state: Virginia
Study officials:
affiliation: Old Dominion University
name: Abby L Braitman, Ph.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Braitman AL, Lau-Barraco C. Personalized Boosters After a Computerized Intervention Targeting College Drinking: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2018 Sep;42(9):1735-1747. doi: 10.1111/acer.13815. Epub 2018 Jul 11.
citation: Braitman AL, Henson JM. Personalized boosters for a computerized intervention targeting college drinking: The influence of protective behavioral strategies. J Am Coll Health. 2016 Oct;64(7):509-19. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2016.1185725. Epub 2016 May 5.
citation: Braitman AL, Strowger M, Lau-Barraco C, Shipley JL, Kelley ML, Carey KB. Examining the added value of harm reduction strategies to emailed boosters to extend the effects of online interventions for college drinkers. Psychol Addict Behav. 2022 Sep;36(6):635-647. doi: 10.1037/adb0000755. Epub 2021 Jun 3.
citation: Braitman AL, Shipley JL, Strowger M, Ayala Guzman R, Whiteside A, Bravo AJ, Carey KB. Examining Emailed Feedback as Boosters After a College Drinking Intervention Among Fraternities and Sororities: Rationale and Protocol for a Remote Controlled Trial (Project Greek). JMIR Res Protoc. 2022 Oct 28;11(10):e42535. doi: 10.2196/42535.