College Student Alcohol Behaviors and Strategies

Overview

The primary goal of this clinical trial is to examine whether the use of personalized goal setting related to protective behavioral strategies (PBS)-behavioral techniques enacted before, during, or after alcohol consumption to reduce risk and minimize harm-increases the use of personally selected PBS implementation. A secondary goal of this trial is to examine whether increasing the frequency of PBS use will lead to decreases in alcohol consumption, fewer alcohol-related negative consequences, and increased alcohol-related positive consequences. Researchers will compare a control condition, a PBS-only condition, and a PBS+Goals condition to address the aims of the study. Participants in all conditions will complete measures about current PBS use, alcohol use and consequences, and likelihood and confidence to change current alcohol and strategy use. All participants will receive brief psychoeducation on PBS. Participants in the PBS-only and PBS+Goals condition will select three PBS to use over the following two weeks, and select a strategy for remembering the PBS they chose. Participants in the PBS+Goals condition will receive psychoeducation about goal setting and identify two goals related to each PBS strategy they selected. Participants in all conditions will complete a follow-up after two weeks containing measures about PBS use, alcohol use and consequences, and likelihood and confidence to change alcohol and strategy use. Participants in the PBS-only and PBS+Goals condition will complete a measure to indicate whether they used the reminder strategy they selected at the two-week follow-up. Participants in the PBS+Goals condition will complete a measure indicating whether they believe they achieved their goals at the two-week follow-up.