International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 Review Reduction of alcohol-related harm on United States college campuses: The use of personal feedback interventions Helene Raskin White ∗ Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, 607 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8001, USA Received 7 June 2005; received in revised form 11 October 2005; accepted 6 February 2006 Abstract This paper reviews research evaluating personalised feedback interventions (PFIs) for reducing the harms associated with alcohol abuse among US college students. PFIs provide students with feedback about their own alcohol use relative to college norms, as well as information about other aspects of their drinking behaviours, related problems and/or perceived risks. Studies conducted in the United States using randomised designs indicate that PFIs are efficacious for reducing various aspects of alcohol use and/or related negative consequences for both high-risk volunteer and mandated college students. To date, these studies have demonstrated that written-feedback-only PFIs are as efficacious as brief in-person PFIs, at least on a short-term duration. Therefore, college administrators should be encouraged to develop interventions to screen students and provide written personal feedback in order to reduce high-risk drinking patterns among college students. Web-based approaches might prove to be a very cost-effective strategy, although more research is needed to determine their efficacy, as well as what aspects of the feedback are the most effective. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Drinking; Alcohol; College students; Interventions; Feedback Introduction In the United States (US), significant increases in the frequency and quantity of alcohol use occur during the transition from high school to college (Bachman, Wadsworth, O’Malley, Johnston, & Schulenberg, 1997). Many young people leave their homes, parents, and old friends when they enter college. These changes lead to new freedoms and reductions of informal social controls. In addition, first-year college students have more free time than they did while attending high school. All of these new freedoms contribute to an increase in alcohol use among first-year college students (Arnett, 2005; Maggs, 1997; White & Jackson, 2004/2005). Young people also face more challenges during their first year of college than they did in high school, such as paying for school and balancing social pressures with academic demands, new roles and the need to develop new friendships, all of which may create stress. Some students may turn to ∗ Tel.: +1 732 445 3579; fax: +1 732 445 3500. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0955-3959/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.02.006 alcohol to cope with this stress and associate with peers who also use alcohol to cope and who reinforce such behaviour (Paschall & Flewelling, 2002). In addition, first-year students may perceive heavy drinking as normative behaviour among their peers and may come to college with positive alcohol expectancies (Maggs, 1997; Paschall & Flewelling, 2002). Finally, alcohol use may facilitate the making of new friendships (Schulenburg & Maggs, 2002; White & Jackson, 2004/2005). Therefore, increases in drinking as young people enter college may be for positive reasons (for example, to be social) and for negative reasons (to cope with stress or to conform to misperceived norms). Cooper, Agocha, and Sheldon (2000) found that drinking to cope with negative circumstances predicted heavy drinking among college students. However, research suggests that college students are more likely to drink for positive or celebratory reasons than to cope with negative feelings (Read, Wood, Kahler, Maddock, & Palfai, 2003). Whereas there may be some benefits of drinking for college students (such as socialising), excessive drinking among this group is associated with negative consequences H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 that can have long-term repercussions (White & Jackson, 2004/2005). In 2001, more than 1700 US college student deaths and over 500,000 unintentional injuries were alcoholrelated (Hingson, Heeren, Winter, & Wechsler, 2005). Excessive drinking by college students increases the risks of fatal and non-fatal injuries, academic failure, violence and other crime and unsafe sexual behaviour (Goldman, 2002; Presley, Meilman, & Cashin, 1996; Wechsler, Lee, Kuo, & Lee, 2000; Wechsler, Lee, Nelson, & Lee, 2001). In addition, there are second-hand negative consequences from excessive drinking by students that are experienced by others on campus and in local neighbourhoods (for example, physical and sexual assaults, vandalism, insults and humiliation, sleep disturbances and so on) (Wechsler et al., 2001). Therefore, interventions are needed to reduce the harms associated with excessive drinking among college students. Although 31% of US college students report symptoms of alcohol abuse and 6% report symptoms of dependence (Knight et al., 2002), most will outgrow heavy drinking and alcohol problems on their own and without treatment (Marlatt et al., 1998; Schulenberg, O’Malley, Bachman, Wadsworth, & Johnston, 1996; Weingardt et al., 1998). However, young people are still vulnerable to harmful consequences during their peak using years. Therefore, more effective prevention programs are needed to help students safely move through this risky developmental period (Dimeff, Baer, Kivlahan, & Marlatt, 1999). Furthermore, although most heavy drinkers mature out, there exists a subset that maintains heavy drinking and goes on to develop more serious problems with alcohol after college (O’Neill, Parra, & Sher, 2001). Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict in advance who will and who will not mature out. Therefore, heavy-drinking college students represent an important target group for prevention efforts. It is especially important to reach at-risk students who do not typically seek help. College campuses are settings where young people with problems can be identified and treated (Barnett, Monti, & Wood, 2001). Campuses need to implement new strategies for screening and early identification of high-risk youths and ensure that treatment is readily available to those in need (Knight et al., 2002, p. 263). Over the last decade, and especially the last several years, there has been massive growth in college prevention programs, although few have been evaluated properly (Anderson & Milgram, 1996, 2001). Furthermore, the proliferation of college prevention programs has not led to a reduction in problems related to alcohol use among college students (Wechsler et al., 2002). For the most part, universal programs have been the least successful (Chiauzzi, Green, Lord, Thum, & Goldstein, 2005; Moskowitz, 1989). Targeted and indicated programs may be especially cost-effective because they reach students who could potentially benefit the most from the intervention (Larimer et al., 2001). A thorough review of individually oriented interventions with adequate evaluation designs was conducted for the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Task Force on College Drinking (Task Force of the National Advisory Council on 311 Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2002). The authors concluded that the most effective individual approaches for alcohol prevention on college campuses were: (1) interventions that combined brief cognitive-behavioural skills with norms clarification and motivational enhancement; (2) brief motivational enhancement interventions; and (3) alcohol expectancy challenges (Larimer & Cronce, 2002). Brief interventions are needed because most multi-component programs are resource-intensive, making them difficult to implement on a large scale (Boyd & Faden, 2002). Brief interventions have been used in a variety of settings—including college health centres, emergency rooms, crisis centres and physicians’ offices—and are usually defined as minimal contact with a medical or mental health professional that ranges from several minutes to several sessions in length (usually one or two sessions, but almost always less than four) (Barnett et al., 2001; Bien, Miller, & Tonigan, 1993; Dimeff et al., 1999). Brief and inexpensive interventions have demonstrated effectiveness with individuals who are not seeking help (Heather, 1998). Studies have also shown a positive effect of brief interventions in health care settings with adult problem drinkers (Babor & Grant, 1992; Ballesteros, Duffy, Querejeta, Ariño, & GonzálezPinto, 2004; Barnett et al., 2001). A major advantage of brief interventions is that they are cost-effective and, thus, can reach large numbers of people. Therefore, even programs with small individual effects can have an overall large effect on society. The purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale for brief personal feedback interventions for college students and to summarise evaluations of these interventions. Brief personal feedback interventions One type of brief intervention that has been particularly effective with college students is brief personal feedback interventions (PFIs). PFIs assume that by receiving information about one’s own drinking patterns in relation to peers and personal risk factors, the individual will be motivated to change, develop a strategy for change and implement change (Miller, Toscova, Miller, & Sanchez, 2000). PFIs are designed, therefore, to heighten the participant’s awareness of personal patterns of use, peer norms, risks related to use and the experience of negative consequences under certain drinking conditions. The increased awareness and salience of personal risk factors is a key component of theories of behavioural change (Larimer et al., 2001, p. 372). Furthermore, because students tend to over-estimate the acceptability of heavy drinking by peers and the amounts of alcohol that other students drink (Borsari & Carey, 2001, 2003; Perkins, 2002), individualised feedback to counteract these misperceptions is hypothesised to reduce harmful drinking. PFIs are recommended for people who do not exhibit severe substance use dependence but, rather, have mild to moderate problems or who use substances in harmful ways (Dimeff et al., 1999). Such interventions seem particularly 312 H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 appropriate with college students who often demonstrate risky use of substances or who use in combination with at-risk situations (for example, alcohol-impaired driving). PFIs are often conducted in person within the context of a brief motivational interview (BMI), a technique that focuses on increasing clients’ motivations to change (Miller & Rollnick, 2002). A major goal of BMIs is to make clients aware of the discrepancy between their actual and desired behaviour. BMIs have the potential to be especially effective with young people because they are tailored for individuals who may not be interested in changing their behaviour and utilise strategies that are appropriate to individuals’ readiness to change (Barnett et al., 2001). Marlatt, Larimer, Baer, & Quigley (1993) identified numerous advantages of BMIs for college students. First, the non-confrontational and non-judgemental style of a BMI is appropriate for college students who are generally defensive about their drinking and do not respond positively to being lectured. Second, this technique avoids labelling young people as having a problem or as being a substance abuser. Third, the technique is based on each individual’s specific history and risk factors. Therefore, it addresses the highly variable nature of college drinking behaviour. Finally, because BMIs put the responsibility on the individual to recognise his or her own need to change, the student is treated as a ‘thoughtful adult’. Many PFIs for college students have been modelled on the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) model, which was designed as a model BMI for alcohol prevention among this population (Dimeff et al., 1999). The BASICS program combines Miller & Rollnick’s (2002) concept of motivational enhancement with cognitivebehavioural skills training (Baer et al., 1992) within a harm reduction perspective (Marlatt, Baer, & Larimer, 1995). The primary goal is to move students to reduce risky behaviours and avoid the harmful effects from drinking rather than focus on a specific drinking target, such as abstinence (Dimeff et al., 1999, p. 5). BASICS is conducted in two sessions. In the first session, assessments of drinking are made, and information is presented about alcohol use, such as the effects of varying blood alcohol concentrations (BACs). In the second session, the student is given feedback about his or her drinking in relation to other students, and then strategies to reduce risk are discussed. The feedback sheet contains information on a student’s drinking pattern relative to other college students, his or her peak BAC level, alcohol-related problems and personal risk factors (for example, dependence symptoms and family history of alcoholism; see Dimeff et al., 1999; Murphy et al., 2001). The theoretical model for BASICS assumes that, upon receiving feedback on the extent of one’s personal risk, alcohol use and expectancies in relation to peers, the student will increase his or her readiness to change his or her drinking behaviours (Miller & Rollnick, 2002). In addition, the students’ perceptions about risk, peer use and alcohol/drug expectancies will change (Dimeff et al., 1999). These changes will lead to reduced drinking, which in turn should reduce negative consequences of use. The BASICS model, thus, relies on motivational enhancement techniques to increase clients’ readiness for change and to help guide them through the change process (Dimeff et al., 1999). BASICS has been tested on several college campuses throughout the United States. Below, results from these studies, as well as other studies that have evaluated PFIs for college students, are reviewed. Evaluations of personal feedback interventions Some of the studies evaluating PFIs with college students have incorporated a PFI within the context of an in-person intervention, and others have used written feedback only. Most of the evaluations have used samples of student volunteers, generally screened for high risk, and most of these studies were included in a recent review by Walters and Neighbors (2005). A few studies have also evaluated PFIs for mandated students. This paper extends Walters and Neighbors’ review by adding four studies of mandated students (Barnett, Colby, & Monti, 2004; Borsari & Carey, 2005; Fromme & Corbin, 2004; White et al., 2006), which were not published at the time that the authors wrote their review, as well as one new Web-based study (Chiauzzi et al., 2005) and another study that was not included in their review (Nye, Agnostinelli, & Smith, 1999). Two studies included in the Walters and Neighbors’ review (Dimeff & McNeely, 2000; Walters, 2000) are not summarised here, because the cited references did not provide enough information about their design and/or findings to be able to adequately summarise them. Only studies that have used randomised designs are included in this review. Interventions with student volunteers Baer et al. (1992) randomised students to either a classroom format, which entailed six 90-min weekly meetings including an alcohol challenge, or to an individualised feedback and advice format, which included an assessment and 1 h of personalised feedback in the context of a motivational interview. Follow-ups were conducted at 3, 6, 12 and 24 months. Both groups (approximate N = 69 at follow-up) reduced their frequency and volume of drinking by about 40% from baseline to follow-up, and reductions were maintained over time. There were no significant differences between individuals who attended the classes and those who received the brief feedback intervention, although students were more favourable about the classroom intervention. This study was one of the earliest to demonstrate that a brief intervention for college students could be successful in modifying drinking behaviours. However, the relatively small N and lack of a no-treatment control group were limitations. Marlatt et al. (1998) evaluated the efficacy of the BASICS model with 348 high-risk student volunteers who were randomly assigned to the intervention condition or to an assessment-only control group. During the winter of their H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 freshman year, students in the PFI met with an interviewer and received personal feedback about their drinking in relation to college averages, risk behaviours, personal risks for problems and beliefs about alcohol effects. Each student was given a written personalised feedback profile along with generic information about alcohol and strategies for reducing risk. At the 6-month follow-up, those in the PFI reported less frequent drinking, lower quantities and lower peak quantities over time compared to the controls. Effect sizes were relatively small (standardised effect sizes of about 0.15). The following year, members of the PFI group were sent written feedback regarding their responses to the baseline, 6-month and 12-month assessments and some (especially those at risk) received a second BMI in person or over the telephone. At the 2-year follow-up, there were significant reductions in drinking and related problems for all students; however, those in the PFI group displayed significantly greater reduction in drinking rates (effect sizes ranged from 0.14 to 0.20) and problems (effect size of 0.32) than those in the control group (Marlatt et al., 1998). The results were maintained when outcomes were compared by gender, parental history of alcoholism, conduct problems and whether or not students lived in fraternities or sororities. A 4-year follow-up indicated that these PFI effects were sustained over time (Baer, Kivlahan, Blume, McKnight, & Marlatt, 2001). At the same school, Larimer et al. (2001) administered a similar intervention to fraternity members. Fraternities were randomly assigned to a PFI (N = 77) or an assessment-only control group (N = 82). Students in the PFI received a 1-h individually tailored feedback session, presented according to the principles of motivational interviewing. PFI students reported greater reductions in the number of drinks per week (effect size = 0.42) and typical peak BAC (effect size = 0.38) compared to controls. There were no significant group differences in volume of alcohol consumed per occasion, frequency of drinking or alcohol-related problems. Students who received their intervention from peers (trained undergraduates) rather than from professionals (trained psychology graduate students) reported significantly greater reductions in peak BAC (effect size = 0.58). At another university, Borsari and Carey (2000) evaluated the efficacy of a PFI within a BMI, based on the BASICS model. They randomly assigned 29 students to the PFI and 31 students to a no-treatment control group. At the 6-week follow-up, the brief intervention group reported significantly greater reductions in frequency of overall drinking (effect size = 0.28), frequency of heavy drinking (effect size = 0.12) and number of drinks per week (effect size = 0.21) compared to controls. There were no group differences in alcoholrelated problems. The authors found that perceptions of typical student drinking mediated the effects of the intervention. Results should be interpreted with caution, given the relatively small sample size. Murphy et al. (2001) also evaluated the BASICS model. High-risk student volunteers were randomly assigned to: (1) a 50-min session, in which the student met individually with 313 a clinician and discussed his or her personal feedback sheet (N = 30); (2) an alcohol education condition, consisting of a 30-min video on consequences of drinking and then a 20min individual session with a clinician to discuss the video, as well as a generic information sheet on risks of drinking for college students (N = 29); or (3) a no-treatment control group (N = 25). Students were followed up at 3 and 9 months after the intervention. Given the small sample size, there were no statistically significant differences among the groups on the drinking variables. However, at the 3-month follow-up, effect sizes indicated that BASICS students reported greater reductions in frequency of drinking than the participants of the education (between group effect size = 0.46) and control (between group effect size = 0.46) groups and greater reductions in alcohol problems than the control students (between group effect size = 0.33). At the 9-month follow-up, there were no significant differences among groups for the drinking variables. The study also found that the PFI was more efficacious with heavier than lighter drinkers. Finally, students in the BASICS group rated the intervention more favourably than those in the education group. Using a small sample of 72 high-risk drinker volunteers, Nye et al. (1999) evaluated the efficacy of two types of written personal feedback (self-focusing and normative) delivered in person. The self-focusing feedback provided students with information about their own drinking patterns, whereas the normative feedback provided students with information about drinking patterns of college students of their same sex. Study participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups (self-focusing-only, normative-only, both selffocusing and normative, and a control group that received printed material on a health issue unrelated to alcohol); group sample sizes for this study were relatively small. Students who received either the normative information alone or the self-focusing information alone perceived the greatest personal alcohol problem recognition and provided the most negative evaluations of their own drinking. The group that received both types of feedback decreased problem recognition, possibly because the combined feedback created more defensiveness. Effects sizes were not presented. Neal and Carey (2004) compared two types of feedback interventions delivered in a small group context for the majority of participants (five students received the session individually). High-risk volunteers were randomly assigned to a PFI delivered in a small group (N = 31), a personal striving assessment (PSA) group (N = 31) or an attention control group (N = 30). Students in the PFI received personal feedback on their own drinking and normative comparison data, as well as feedback on their frequency of alcohol-related problems. Students in the PSA group participated in an exercise in which they rated how each of their 10 most important personal strivings (presented to them on a form) would be affected by various levels of alcohol consumption. The attention control group received a handout on alcohol absorption and metabolism, which was explained in a lecture format. Following the intervention, PFI students showed a significantly 314 H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 higher intention to reduce their drinking than the PSA and control groups and higher discrepancy compared to the control group, although the authors provided no effect sizes. The three groups did not differ in terms of reported negative affect or any drinking outcome measured the week following the intervention. Murphy et al. (2004) randomly assigned high-risk student volunteers to either receive written personal feedback and a harm reduction sheet only (N = 28) or to receive written personal feedback and a harm reduction sheet within the context of a BMI (N = 26). At the 6-month follow-up, students in both conditions reduced their frequency of drinking, number of drinks per week and frequency of heavy drinking with medium effects sizes (mean within group effect size was 0.42 for the feedback-only group and 0.48 for the feedback plus BMI group), although there were no significant reductions in alcohol-related problems. There were no significant differences between intervention conditions, demonstrating that written PFIs can be as efficacious as in-person PFIs. The small sample size may have contributed to the inability to detect group differences. Furthermore, there was no no-treatment control group. A few studies have evaluated mailed PFIs. Agostinelli, Brown, and Miller (1995) evaluated the efficacy of a mailed PFI with a very small sample of high-risk student volunteers (N = 26). After completing a baseline assessment, students were randomly assigned to receive written feedback by mail or to a no-contact control group. Six weeks later, those in the PFI significantly reduced their alcohol consumption (effect size of 1.14) and average BAC (effect size = 1.00) compared to the control group, but not their peak BAC. Using a small sample of high-risk volunteers (N = 37), Walters, Bennett, and Miller (2000) also compared a 2-h small group intervention with mailed personal feedback to a mailed PFI-only condition and a no-contact control condition. At the 6-week follow-up, the mailed PFI significantly decreased the number of drinks per month (within group effect size = 1.01) relative to controls (within group effect size = 0.04). The group intervention plus feedback group did not differ significantly from the other two groups (within group effect size = 0.60). There were no significant differences among groups in terms of peak BAC, alcohol-related consequences and alcohol expectancies, although the small sample size may have affected these results. Overall, the results indicated that a feedback-only intervention was as efficacious as a more intense in-person intervention in reducing drinking behaviour over a short time period. Collins, Carey, and Sliwinski (2002) expanded upon these studies of mailed feedback and evaluated the efficacy of a mailed PFI for at-risk college student volunteers. Students were randomly assigned to the PFI group (N = 47) or an attention-control group (which received a psychoeducational brochure about alcohol, N = 48). At the 6-week follow-up, students in the PFI reported fewer drinks per heaviest drinking week (between group effect size = 0.28) and fewer heavy-drinking episodes (between group effect size = 0.33) than controls; however, these significant differences disappeared at the 6-month follow-up. The intervention did not affect peak BAC or alcohol-related consequences. The researchers suggested that future PFIs should include information about negative consequences on the feedback sheet. Although the sample for this study was larger than the previous two evaluations of mailed interventions, the follow-up sample was still relatively small. In addition to mailed feedback, a couple of recent studies have evaluated computer-delivered feedback. In a study by Neighbors, Larimer, and Lewis (2004), heavy drinkers (based on a large screening) completed a baseline assessment and were randomly assigned to receive a PFI delivered immediately by computer and then printed out (N = 126) or to a no-treatment control group (N = 126). The feedback profile included only information about the amount the participant consumed, his or her perceptions about other students’ drinking, and other students’ actual drinking. The results indicated that there were significant reductions in drinking behaviour for the intervention group relative to the control group at both the 3- and 6-month follow-ups (effect sizes = 0.35 and 0.36, respectively). In addition, at both follow-ups, there were significant differences in perception of peer norms (effect sizes = 0.61 and 0.63, respectively). Consistent with the findings of the Borsari and Carey (2000) study, the reduction in drinking was mediated by the reduction in perceptions of peer use. In another study, Chiauzzi et al. (2005) evaluated the efficacy of a Web-based PFI. Heavy drinking college students were randomised by sex to either an interactive Web site that offered motivational feedback (known as ‘My Student Body: Alcohol’) (N = 105) or to a control group that received alcohol education on a Web site (N = 110). Both groups were expected to access the Web site for four weekly 20-min sessions. Students were followed up approximately 1 month after baseline and 3 months post-intervention. Both groups showed significant decreases in alcohol frequency, occasions of binge drinking and alcohol quantity over time. At the 1-month follow-up, PFI students decreased their maximum number of drinks consumed on a drinking day more quickly (from logged 2.0 to 1.56) than controls (from logged 1.8 to 1.6) and decreased their overall drinking composite measure (from z-score −.09 to −.32), whereas controls increased their overall drinking (from z-score .23 to .39). At the 3-month follow-up, there were no significant differences between groups on any alcohol use measure. However, significant differences between the PFI and control groups were found for women, persistent heavy drinkers and drinkers with low motivation to change. Within each of these subgroups, students in the PFI condition reduced their alcohol consumption rates faster than those in the control condition. Furthermore, non-White students reduced their drinking more quickly than White students. Finally, PFI students reported more favourable evaluations of the intervention site than education students. The PFI condition included educational, motivational and skill building components, and it is not possible, therefore, to attribute the H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 positive effects of the intervention specifically to the feedback component. In sum, the above studies have demonstrated that inperson, mailed and computer-generated PFIs are effective in reducing alcohol use and/or related problems among heavy drinking college student volunteers. Nevertheless, the results should be interpreted cautiously due to the small sample sizes and short-term follow-ups in many of the studies. Interventions with mandated students A few recent studies have evaluated PFIs for students mandated to receive an intervention because of infractions of university rules concerning alcohol use. Such students are an important target group for interventions (Larimer & Cronce, 2002) and generally report higher drinking rates, more alcohol-related problems and lower grades than other students (Fromme & Corbin, 2004; Tevyaw, Monti, & Colby, 2004). Borsari and Carey (2005) compared high-risk mandated students in an in-person PFI (N = 34) to those receiving an alcohol education intervention (N = 30). Both interventions were conducted one-on-one. The PFI was provided within the context of a BMI, using the principles of motivational interviewing (Miller & Rollnick, 2002). At the 6-month followup, both groups significantly reduced their heavy drinking episodes (PFI within group effect size = 0.39; alcohol education group = 0.52). The PFI intervention group (within group effect size = 1.11) showed significantly greater reductions in the alcohol-related problems than the alcohol education group (within group effect size = 0.07) (between group effect size = 0.39). Although there was no significant time by group interaction effect for typical BAC, the reduction was larger for the PFI (within group effect size = 0.67) than for the alcohol education group (within group effect size = 0.19). White et al. (2006) (see also White, Labouvie, Morgan, Pugh, & Celinska, 2005) evaluated a brief PFI for mandated college students. The program was modelled after BASICS. After the initial assessment session, students were randomly assigned to either receive a written personal feedback profile only (N = 104) or to go over their personal profile with a counselor within the context of a BMI (N = 118). At the 3-month follow-up, students in both conditions significantly reduced their number of drinks per week (effect size = 0.32), peak BAC in a typical week (effect size = 0.46), occasions of high-volume drinking (effect size = 0.14) and alcohol-related problems (effect size = 0.58). In addition, there was a significant decrease in the percent of students who smoked cigarettes (24% decrease) and used cannabis (20% decrease), as well as in the number of drug-related problems (effect size = 0.19). The authors also found that both PFIs had a significant effect on proposed mediators; participants in both conditions significantly reduced their perception of the number of students who use cannabis (effect size = 0.26) and other drugs (effect size = 0.27) and increased their readiness to change (effect size = 0.19), although there was no differ- 315 ence between intervention groups. As found in the Murphy et al. (2004) study, there were no significant differences in any outcome (or mediator) between those who received the in-person intervention and those who received only written feedback. Barnett et al. (2004) compared a one-session BMI with personal feedback to a standard alcohol education intervention (using the CD-ROM, Alcohol 101). After the intervention, students were randomly assigned to receive a booster session 1 month later. The booster session was the same format as their original intervention, although somewhat shorter. Students with and without the booster were followed up 3 months after the baseline intervention. Preliminary findings for 117 students indicated that both intervention groups (BMI and education) significantly reduced their frequency of drinking, frequency of heavy drinking and the number of drinks per week, although no between group differences were found for these outcomes (effect sizes were not presented). Students in the alcohol education group reduced their typical BAC significantly more than those in the BMI (possibly because the CD-ROM focused on BAC levels). There were no changes in the number of alcohol-related negative consequences. Students in the BMI group with the booster session were more likely to seek further counseling compared to those in the other three groups. Fromme and Corbin (2004) evaluated the Lifestyle Management Class (LMC) using 403 high-risk volunteers and 113 mandated college students. Students were randomly assigned to either a peer-led LMC (N = 193), a professionally led LMC (N = 159) or to a control group (wait-list control group for mandated students or assessment-only control group for volunteers) (N = 164). The LMC involved two 2-h classes with about 10 students in each group. In the first session, students completed an assessment of their drinking behaviour and then discussed alcohol use, behavioural change, self-management and moderation. In the second session they were provided with graphic feedback about their drinking in comparison to peer use and there was more discussion about alcohol use, peer norms and harm reduction strategies. Students were followed up approximately 6 weeks after the pre-test and 6 months post-intervention. All groups, including the control group, reduced their drinking over time. At the 6 week post-test, the only alcohol-related outcome that differentiated between treatment and control groups was that the treatment groups reported a greater decrease in instances of alcoholimpaired driving (within group effect sizes for mandated students ranged from 0.03 to 0.22 and for volunteer students from 0.17 to 0.20) than controls (within group effect size ranged from −0.09 to 0.00). At the 6-month follow-up, there were no significant effects involving treatment condition. The results indicated that there were no differences in alcohol use outcomes among students in the peer-led and professionally led LMCs. In sum, all studies evaluating the efficacy of interventions with mandated students showed declines in alcohol use outcomes, although the type of intervention did not appear to 316 H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 affect most outcomes. Because of ethical reasons, it is often difficult to assign mandated students to a no-treatment control group. Therefore, only the Fromme and Corbin (2004) study had a no-treatment (wait list) control group, and for most of the drinking variables, these students improved similarly to those receiving the intervention. The absence of a no-treatment control group in the other three studies of mandated students makes it difficult to determine the specific effects of the intervention relative to being reprimanded or simply being assessed. Discussion The results of rigorous evaluations of PFIs with US college students have been quite promising. Students receiving personal feedback regarding their own drinking and peer norms reduce drinking and related problems more than those who do not receive feedback, and, thus far, this finding holds regardless of whether the feedback is presented in person or not. Similar findings have been reported outside the United States. For example, university students in New Zealand were randomly assigned to a computerised assessment and PFI in the context of a BMI or to a leaflet-only control condition. Students in the PFI significantly reduced their drinking and related problems relative to controls (Kypri, 2004). Therefore, the efficacy of BMIs for college students may not depend on personal contact, but instead may be the result of the feedback provided (Larimer & Cronce, 2002). In fact, both Murphy et al. (2004) and White et al. (2006) compared in-person to written feedback-only PFIs and demonstrated that written feedback alone was as effective as in-person feedback to reduce harmful drinking behaviours, at least on a short-term basis. The former study used high-risk college student volunteers and the latter was conducted with mandated students. However, the first study was based on a relatively small sample and neither study utilised a no-treatment control group. Therefore, it is possible that assessment alone may have had a positive effect on reducing drinking behaviour (Fromme & Corbin, 2004; White et al., 2006). However, White et al. (2006) compared their mandated students to a representative sample of college students who were assessed twice—2 months apart—as a control group for a different study (i.e., they served as a quasi-control group for the PFI students). The analyses indicated that the observed changes from baseline to follow-up among the mandated students receiving the PFI were not due to normal developmental reductions in substance use over the course of a college year. White et al. (2006) found that the quasi-control group increased some aspects of their drinking (such as the number of drinks per week and peak BAC) after a baseline assessment, whereas the mandated students receiving the PFI decreased in these same drinking measures. Furthermore, several short-term follow-up studies have demonstrated that mailed PFIs lead to reductions in drinking compared to no- treatment controls (for example, Agostinelli et al., 1995; Collins et al., 2002; Walters et al., 2000), and in all of these studies, the control group completed a baseline assessment. Therefore, to date, no studies have demonstrated that inperson PFIs are superior to written feedback alone (mailed or off the Web), and existing studies have suggested that feedback-alone is associated with reductions in drinking compared to assessment-only. Group formats for providing feedback have not proven to be as efficacious as these other modes (Walters & Neighbors, 2005). Longer term follow-ups are needed to demonstrate that these reductions are sustained over time. Given the existing evidence, however, it is reasonable to hypothesise that written feedback can be an efficacious approach for reducing the harms related to alcohol use among college students. Murphy et al. (2004) suggested that written PFIs may be particularly effective with ambivalent students who might increase resistance in the presence of a counselor. Electronic assessment and feedback may be an especially cost-effective strategy for providing PFIs to college students. In focus groups conducted in New Zealand, high-risk college student drinkers expressed an interest in electronic assessment and feedback in contrast to a reluctance to discuss their drinking with a doctor or another health professional (Kypri, 2004). Furthermore, an anonymous survey of New Zealand university students found that electronic screening and brief intervention was the most popular intervention strategy endorsed by students (Kypri, 2004). Students in the US also prefer unassisted, self-directed or minimal-contact alcohol use interventions over other types of interventions (Chiauzzi et al., 2005). Furthermore, personal computer (for example, Neighbors et al., 2004) and Web-based (for example, Chiauzzi et al., 2005) feedbacks have been shown to be efficacious in reducing alcohol consumption among heavy-drinking college students when compared to no intervention and an alternative intervention, respectively. Thus, recent research supports the feasibility of providing motivational interventions on a large-scale anonymous basis using computerised technologies (Chiauzzi et al., 2005, p. 272). In other words, Webbased approaches offer a promising non-intrusive way to provide incentive to change risky drinking among college students (Koski-Jannes & Cunningham, 2001), although more research is needed with larger samples to establish the efficacy of such interventions. It is, therefore, reasonable to recommend that college administrators begin to implement screening and feedback interventions for incoming students. In a recent review article, Larimer, Cronce, Lee, and Kilmer (2004/2005) identified several opportunities to screen young people for high-risk drinking on college campuses. They also discussed the benefits and costs of universal screening compared to screening students in local emergency rooms or student health centres, and to screening mandated students. The authors identified several issues that must be considered when initiating a largescale screening and intervention program, including who should deliver the intervention, how to encourage students to H.R. White / International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006) 310–319 participate in these programs, how to increase student trust and accuracy of responses, institutional liability and confidentiality of the data (see Larimer et al., 2004/2005, for greater details on recommendations for college administrators). Larimer et al. concluded, and I agree, that regardless of how measures are implemented, the intervention content and process should be based on interventions that have already been proven to be efficacious.Although a large amount of evidence supports the efficacy of PFIs, more research is still needed before universal screening and feedback interventions are initiated. Walters and Neighbors (2005) highlighted several gaps in the existing literature. First, it is necessary to identify what components of feedback intervention are necessary and sufficient, as well as whether there are additive effects of various feedback components. Furthermore, research is needed to determine which components are effective for which types of students. There is also a need to determine the appropriate reference group when providing normative feedback to various groups of students. Finally, more research is needed to evaluate potential mechanisms of intervention efficacy. Given that most college students, at least in the US, have access to the Internet (Chiauzzi et al., 2005), it would be possible to deliver Web-based interventions to the entire student body and, thereby, to provide much needed screening and intervention services (Knight et al., 2002). Several of the studies reviewed above demonstrated that PFIs were more efficacious with higher than lower risk students (for example, Chiauzzi et al., 2005; Murphy et al., 2001). Therefore, Webbased PFIs potentially might be used to supplement or replace more labour-intensive, in-person interventions for high-risk students. More research is needed to determine what components of Web-based feedback are beneficial and for what types of college students Web-based PFIs are and are not effective. Acknowledgements The writing of this paper was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA 17552) as part of the Rutgers Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center. 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