Screening and brief intervention for high-risk college student drinkers: Results from a 2-year follow-up assessment.

TLDR

The study tested whether a brief motivational intervention reduces harmful drinking outcomes in high‑risk college students. High‑risk seniors were screened and randomly assigned to receive an individualized motivational brief intervention in freshman year or no treatment, with a normative group as a natural history comparison. Over two years, intervention students showed significant reductions in drinking and alcohol‑related problems, though they still had more issues than the natural history group, indicating a developmental decline.

Abstract

This randomized controlled trial evaluated the efficacy of a brief intervention designed to reduce the harmful consequences of heavy drinking among high-risk college students. Students screened for risk while in their senior year of high school (188 women and 160 men) were randomly assigned to receive an individualized motivational brief intervention in their freshman year of college or to a no-treatment control condition. A normative group selected from the entire screening pool provided a natural history comparison. Follow-up assessments over a 2-year period showed significant reductions in both drinking rates and harmful consequences, favoring students receiving the intervention. Although high-risk students continued to experience more alcohol problems than the natural history comparison group over the 2-year period, most showed a decline in problems over time, suggesting a developmental maturational effect.