Group-based Intervention for Club Patrons

Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation959 enrolled

Overview

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a group-based strategy for encouraging groups of young adults who are engaged in party behaviors at nightclubs to intervene with each other to reduce harms associated with overuse of alcohol and recreational drugs and to reduce harms associated with aggression (physical and sexual).

This study focuses on high risk behaviors (excessive alcohol use, drug use) and unwanted experiences (physical/sexual aggression) that may occur during an evening at a night club for young adults engaged in party behaviors. the goals were: 1) to develop a screener that accurately assesses a group's level of risk for one specific night of club attendance and based upon this assessment, (2) to provide naturally occurring social groups with the necessary skills to identify vulnerability for and to provide them with tools to reduce harms. An algorithm calculated in real time during an entrance survey predicted the types of risks that the group members may encounter during the evening based upon past behaviors and expectations for the evening. Social groups in the experimental condition were exposed to a brief intervention that focused on developing skills described as the 3 O's: a) Outreach-how to approach fellow group members who are at risk, (b) Options-how to suggest options that would increase safety and (c) Out-How to assess when it is time to leave the club. This brief, interactive intervention was delivered by small tablet computers that utilized mobile application technology and cellular wireless service. This low cost delivery was considered important to providing later adoption in the real world and the interactive nature of the intervention was designed to appeal to the young adult population.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

959

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Number of Safety Actions Taken to Intervene Within Group

Five types of safety actions were assessed for individuals (as they exited the club) that could have occurred in response to peer's use of alcohol or drugs, experiencing physical aggression and/or sexual aggression. These safety actions were: (1) checked in with friends to assess their safety, (2) monitored alcohol consumption of peers, (3) encouraged peer to pace their drinking, (4) discouraged drug use, and (5) encouraged steps to sober up. An individual could report 0-5 safety actions. Because this was a peer group intervention, a mean score was created for each group by adding the total individual scores within each group, (groups ranged in size from 2-9, making this total possible range 0-45) and dividing these total within group scores by the number in the group. Thus, each peer group had a score ranging from 0-5, with the higher the score, the more protective the group was.