Exploring Whether Self-affirmation Promotes Reduced Alcohol Consumption in Response to Narrative Health Information

Exploring Whether Experimentally Manipulated Self-affirmation Promotes Reduced Alcohol Consumption in Response to Narrative Health Information

This study tests the effects of a self-affirmation manipulation on (i) acceptance of a health message detailing the risks of alcohol consumption, (ii) engagement with the health message and (iii) alcohol consumption at 7-day follow-up. Half of the participants complete a self-affirmation manipulation, where they reflect on their most important values, whereas the other half complete a control equivalent, where they reflect on their least important values. Immediately post-intervention, all participants then receive information about the risks of alcohol consumption and complete measures of message acceptance and engagement with the materials. Seven days after intervention, participants self-report their alcohol consumption in the previous 7 days.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Alcohol Drinking
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Self-affirmation manipulation task; Behavioral: Control task

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 142
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • Brighton
    • Falmer, Brighton, United Kingdom, BN1 9RH
      • University of Sussex

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Female
• Drinkers

Exclusion Criteria:

• Male
• Non-drinkers

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: TRIPLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Self-affirmation; Participants in the self-affirmation arm write about their most important value, reasons why is important and an example of when they enacted that value. This is the Self-affirmation manipulation task as described in the intervention.	Behavioral: Self-affirmation manipulation task; Participants in the self-affirmation condition indicate their most important value, give three examples of why this value is important to them and one example of something they had done to demonstrate its importance.
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: Control; Participants in this arm complete a control equivalent of the self-affirmation task, where they write about their least important value, reasons why is may be important to someone else and an example of when another person may have enacted that value. This is the Control task as described in the intervention.	Behavioral: Control task; People in the control condition indicate their least important value, three examples of why that value could be important to someone else, and describe something that person could do to show its importance.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Alcohol consumption 7 days after intervention	Seven days after the intervention, participants are contacted and asked to report their alcohol consumption over the previous 7-day period via self-report items. Participants report the type of alcohol (e.g., beer, spirit), type of container (e.g., small glass, pint, single measure) and the number of each type of drink they had consumed on each day over the previous 7 days using the adapted version (Armitage, Harris, & Arden, 2011) of the timeline fallback technique (Sobell & Sobell, 1992). The total number of units consumed by each participant was then calculated using the UK NHS alcohol unit calculator (NHS Choices, 2013: www.nhs.uk/tools/pages/alcohol-unit-calculator.aspx).	7 days after intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Effect of intervention on acceptance of health information	Measures to assess whether the intervention affected the extent to which people accepted information about the risks of alcohol consumption were taken immediately after the intervention via self-report items. Acceptance items included personal relevance, negative affect, attitudes, anticipated regret and intentions. Responses to items were given on 7-point scales with relevant anchors (e.g. strongly disagree [1] to strongly agree [7]). A mean score was calculated for each participant on each measure, with higher scores indicating greater levels of that construct.	Immediately after intervention
Effect of intervention on engagement with health information	Measures to assess whether the intervention affected the extent to which people engaged with the information were taken immediately after the intervention via self-report items. Engagement items included perspective taking, attention, emotion and visualization. Responses to items were given on 7-point scales with relevant anchors (e.g. strongly disagree [1] to strongly agree [7]). A mean score was calculated for each participant on each measure, with higher scores indicating greater levels of that construct.	Immediately after intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Sussex
• Collaborators: Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Kerry J Fox, MSc, University of Sussex

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Fox KJ, Harris PR, Jessop DC. Experimentally Manipulated Self-Affirmation Promotes Reduced Alcohol Consumption in Response to Narrative Information. Ann Behav Med. 2017 Dec;51(6):931-935. doi: 10.1007/s12160-017-9912-2.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: October 1, 2014
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2014
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2014

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 2, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 9, 2016
• First Posted (ESTIMATE): February 15, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE): February 15, 2016
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 9, 2016
• Last Verified: February 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Drinking Behavior; Alcohol Drinking
• Other Study ID Numbers: ER/KJF25/4

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: UNDECIDED