Citation

Edwards SM, Tuliao AP, Kennedy JLD, McChargue DE. J. Technol. Behav. Sci. 2020; 5(4): 395-401.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s41347-020-00149-4

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The current study examined whether a brief text messaging intervention compared to an assessment only/no treatment control would differentially increase protective behavioral strategies (PBS) that were associated with reducing negative alcohol-related negative consequences during football game weekends. Eligible participants (n = 161) were college students who had at least one drinking occasion in the past 30 days. Participants completed a baseline assessment prior to the experimental weekend before being randomly assigned to receive either a text-message condition that instructed students to use PBS or an assessment only/no treatment condition. Participants in the text messaging condition received a message on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of a game weekend. Follow-up assessments were completed within 3 days following the experimental weekend. After controlling for amount of use, results suggest that for game day, those in the text-messaging condition reported significantly higher utilization of PBS and significantly lower negative alcohol-related consequences as compared with the assessment only/no treatment condition. Overall, the results highlight the importance of text messaging as an alternative intervention method that minimizes harm associated with drinking during football game weekends.

Language: en