TY - JOUR PY - 2015// TI - Stand-alone personalized normative feedback for college student drinkers: a meta-analytic review, 2004 to 2014 JO - PLoS one A1 - Dotson, Keri B. A1 - Dunn, Michael E. A1 - Bowers, Clint A. SP - e0139518 EP - e0139518 VL - 10 IS - 10 N2 - BACKGROUND: Norms clarification has been identified as an effective component of college student drinking interventions, prompting research on norms clarification as a single-component intervention known as Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF). Previous reviews have examined PNF in combination with other components but not as a stand-alone intervention.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the degree to which computer-delivered stand-alone personalized normative feedback interventions reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms among college students and to compare gender-neutral and gender-specific PNF. DATA SOURCES: Electronic databases were searched systematically through November 2014. Reference lists were reviewed manually and forward and backward searches were conducted. SELECTION CRITERIA: Outcome studies that compared computer-delivered, stand-alone PNF intervention with an assessment only, attention-matched, or active treatment control and reported alcohol use and harms among college students.

METHODS: Between-group effect sizes were calculated as the standardized mean difference in change scores between treatment and control groups divided by pooled standard deviation. Within-group effect sizes were calculated as the raw mean difference between baseline and follow-up divided by pooled within-groups standard deviation.

RESULTS: Eight studies (13 interventions) with a total of 2,050 participants were included. Compared to control participants, students who received gender-neutral (dbetween = 0.291, 95% CI [0.159, 0.423]) and gender-specific PNF (dbetween = 0.284, 95% CI [0.117, 0.451]) reported greater reductions in drinking from baseline to follow-up. Students who received gender-neutral PNF reported 3.027 (95% CI [2.171, 3.882]) fewer drinks per week at first follow-up and gender-specific PNF reported 3.089 (95% CI [0.992, 5.186]) fewer drinks. Intervention effects were small for harms (dbetween = 0.157, 95% CI [0.037, 0.278]).

CONCLUSIONS: Computer-delivered PNF is an effective stand-alone approach for reducing college student drinking and has a small impact on alcohol-related harms. Effects are small but clinically relevant when considered from a public health perspective. Additional research is needed to examine computer-delivered, stand-alone PNF as a population-level prevention program.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1932-6203 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139518 ID - ref1 ER -