Alcohol and Violence Prevention for College Students

Overview

Heavy episodic drinking and sexual assault (SA) are problematic on college campuses. This project will adapt already developed interventions targeting alcohol use and SA to a mHealth format and involve content that incorporates federal guidelines and CDC recommendations to integrate both bystander intervention and risk reduction content with new innovative personalized content for each risk group (cis-gender heterosexual men, cis-gender heterosexual women, and sexual/gender minorities). Alpha testing with key stakeholders, an open pilot trial, and a randomized pilot trial will be conducted to establish acceptability and to estimate sample size for a larger randomized controlled trial.

Specific aims are as follows: Aim 1 (Stage IA): Modify Alcohol and Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) content to an eHealth format to include personalized content for each risk group (1. cisgender heterosexual men; 2. cisgender heterosexual women; and 3. sexual and gender minorities). Aim 1a: Assess normative behaviors (n = 500) regarding alcohol use and SA for feedback. Aim 1b: Adapt and assess initial acceptability of a workbook version of the intervention content among key stakeholders (college administrators and students from each risk group \[n=5 from each group\]). Aim 2 (Stage IB): Open Pilot Trial. Obtain usability of ASAP among 30 students who engage in HED (10 from each risk group) in an open pilot trial. Aim 3 (Stage IB): A pilot to assess effect size and variability for planning a randomized trial in the future. Randomize students who engage in HED to ASAP or control condition to observe preliminary effect sizes and estimate the variability using a 3-month follow-up. Sample size was determined to estimate the variability within a reasonable margin of error. This calculation also accounted the low base rates of SA and 20% attrition. This led to a sample size of 162 students (n=54 from each risk group).