Brief Alcohol Intervention for School-to-Work Transitions

This is a 2-year research project to test the efficacy of brief motivational intervention for reducing heavy alcohol use in young adults transitioning out of high school. Participation occurs within 3 months prior to graduation or within 1 year following graduation or dropout from high school. Heavy drinkers ages 17-20 will be randomly assigned to receive one session of BMI or one session of relaxation training. All participants complete identical assessments at baseline and immediately post-intervention (during session 1). Participants also complete in-person 6-week and 3-month follow up assessments to evaluate intervention effects. Study aims involve: a) testing the comparative efficacy of BMI; b) identifying moderators (person-level predictors) of intervention response; and c) identifying mediators (mechanisms) of intervention effects, that is, how BMI exerts its effect on outcomes.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Binge Drinking
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Relaxation training; Behavioral: Brief Motivational Counseling

Detailed Description

This study tested the efficacy of a single session of BMI for reducing heavy drinking and related adverse consequences among underage young adult drinkers not attending a 4-year college or university. We designed the intervention to be delivered proximal to the transition out of high school (with or without graduation), because such periods of transition and discontinuity in the life course present opportunities to positively alter developmental paths (Masten et al., 2009). Thus, interventions timed to co-occur with naturalistic transition points may have great potential for decreasing drinking trajectories or preventing harmful escalations in trajectories going forward. To increase the applicability of our findings to the heterogeneous population of community-dwelling young adults, our recruitment targeted a purposefully inclusive "non-4-year-college" population. We hypothesized that, compared to a time and attention-matched control condition (i.e., relaxation training [REL]), BMI would result in significantly reduced heavy drinking and reduced adverse consequences of alcohol use at 6-week and 3-month follow-up.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 168
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 17 years to 20 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• high school students anticipating graduation within 3 months, drop outs or graduates
• males must report at least one day drinking 5 or more standard drinks in past month
• females must report at least one day drinking 4 or more standard drinks in past month

Exclusion Criteria:

• plans to enroll at traditional 4-year college within 12 months
• plans to enter military within next 12 months
• plans to move more than 1 hour from current location in within 12 months

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Placebo Comparator: Relaxation training (REL); This was a 1-hr behavioral counseling session designed to control for nonspecific therapeutic effects by providing equivalent levels of attention from and rapport with a counselor. It began with an introduction and rapport building. The counselor asked about the participant's daily stress level and strategies used to cope. Experience with meditation and relaxation were explored. The counselor presented a rationale for the use of REL for alcohol reduction, namely: the transition to adulthood can be stressful, and stress can lead to increased alcohol use; meditation and relaxation can reduce stress and thereby prevent excessive alcohol use. Didactic information about mental and physical stress and coping was provided. Two strategies were practiced: a simple, guided breathing meditation and a full-body progressive muscle relaxation. The session concluded with a review of the participant's experiences during the 2 exercises and a recommendation to practice the techniques regularly.	Behavioral: Relaxation training; One hour training in relaxation techniques; Other Names: REL
Active Comparator: Brief Motivational Intervention (BMI); This is a 1-hr motivational intervention session. The counselor built rapport while eliciting information about the participant's drinking, discussing current experiences, goals and plans in different domains (education, work, financial independence, social transitions, relationships). The counselor explored how drinking fit into the participant's life and explored risk and protective factors. The session involved: Assessing motivation; Enhancing motivation; Personalized feedback; Envisioning the future with/without change; Counselor summary; and Optional personalized change plan. Participant strengths, protective factors, and autonomy/ability to make changes were elicited and supported. Counselors used MI principles and techniques, including using open-ended questions, reflective listening, eliciting change talk, and supporting self-efficacy statements.	Behavioral: Brief Motivational Counseling; One hour session of brief motivational counseling focused on reduction of heavy drinking.; Other Names: BMI; Brief Motivational Intervention

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Timeline Follow Back Assessing Number of Standard Drinks	This is a calculation of the number of standard alcohol drinks consumed per week, based on data collected via the timeline follow back interview	3 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire	Measure of problem severity in young adult drinkers. Respondents indicated on the Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire (BYAACQ; Kahler et al., 2005) whether they had experienced each of 24 adverse alcohol-related consequences in the prior 6 weeks; items are summed for a total score (Cronbach's α = 0.81 at BL), with a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 24. Higher scores indicate worse outcome.	6 week and 3 month follow ups
Drinking Reduction Strategies	Total score on the Strategies to Limit Drinking 31-item scale. Likert response for each item ranges from 1 = never to 5 = always; range = 31 to 155; higher scores indicate better outcomes: higher scores reflect greater frequency of using various strategies to deliberately limit one's drinking over the past 6 weeks	6 week and 3 month follow ups
Employment Outcomes	Mean score on the "Your Workplace" questionnaire: Negative Effects on Work Performance subscale. Range = 0 to 5. Response options for each item on the subscale are 0 = never; 1 = once or twice, 2 = about once every 2 weeks, 3 = about once a week, 4 = 2-4 times a week, 5 = about daily. Higher scores indicate worse outcomes: Higher scores reflect more frequent negative effects of alcohol use on work performance in the past 6 weeks.	6 week and 3 month follow ups
Satisfaction With Life	This is a mean score on the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), a 5-item instrument designed to measure global cognitive judgments of life satisfaction, using a 7-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree), with higher scores indicating better outcomes, i.e., higher scores indicate greater life satisfaction at the time of assessment. Range = 1 to 7.	6 week and 3 month follow ups
Help Seeking	Count of participants reporting receiving any type of counseling for alcohol in the prior 6 weeks	6 week and 3 month follow ups
Adolescent Reinforcement Survey Schedule (ARSS)	The ARSS contains a list of 45 rewarding activities. Participants rate the frequency with which they participate in each activity WITH and then WITHOUT alcohol/drug use, and then rate their enjoyment of each activity WITH and WITHOUT alcohol/drug use. The outcome measure represents the percentage of reinforcement participants get (i.e., the cross product of frequency X enjoyment) from activities involving alcohol/drug use divided by the total reinforcement they get from all activities with or without alcohol/drug use. Range = 0 to 100; higher scores indicate worse outcomes, i.e., higher scores reflect a greater percentage of enjoyable activities involving alcohol and/or use.	6 week and 3 month follow ups

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Brown University
• Collaborators: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Colby SM, Orchowski L, Magill M, Murphy JG, Brazil LA, Apodaca TR, Kahler CW, Barnett NP. Brief Motivational Intervention for Underage Young Adult Drinkers: Results from a Randomized Clinical Trial. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2018 Jul;42(7):1342-1351. doi: 10.1111/acer.13770. Epub 2018 Jun 6.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: June 1, 2010
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 1, 2011
• Study Completion (Actual): October 1, 2011

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 20, 2012
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 2, 2012
• First Posted (Estimated): March 7, 2012

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): June 12, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 27, 2025
• Last Verified: May 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Drinking Behavior; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Alcohol Drinking; Binge Drinking
• Other Study ID Numbers: R01AA016000 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)