Background: Although motivational processes may influence the intervention effects and help prevention programmes identify students at great risk for alcohol-related problems, no computerized alcohol intervention has yet to be tailored to drinking motives.
Objective: To describe the development and initial pilot testing of a computer-delivered intervention tailored to drinking motives, to prevent alcohol abuse and its adverse consequences among university students in general and among baseline hazardous drinkers specifically.
Methods: 124 college students attending a public university in northeastern Italy participated in this study in October of 2012 (89.2% female- mean age = 21.64-34% baseline hazardous drinkers). Two classes (one undergraduate, one graduate) were assigned to one of two conditions: intervention and control group. Both groups received profile-specific feedback and then the intervention group received profile-specific online training for 4 weeks. This profile was based on their risk type (high-low) and drinking motives (enhancement-social-conformity-coping).
Results: Controlling for corresponding baseline alcohol measures, analyses showed a significant interaction between intervention condition and hazardous drinkers at baseline. For hazardous drinkers at baseline, the alcohol intervention results showed a significant decrease in frequency and quantity of alcohol use at follow-up, while no difference was observed between intervention conditions for non-hazardous drinkers at baseline.
Conclusions: The results suggest that hazardous drinkers (college students) who completed the specific training and received personalized feedback seemed to do better on frequency and quantity of alcohol use than hazardous drinkers (college students) who received only personalized feedback. These results seem to provide support for a larger trial of the intervention and for more appropriate evaluations.
Keywords: Alcohol abuse; college students; computer-delivered intervention; drinking motives; prevention.