Brief Online Study Abroad Alcohol Intervention

August 15, 2021 updated by: RAND

Online Intervention to Prevent Risky Behaviors During College Student Study Abroad Experiences

This study involves a randomized controlled trial that builds upon a successful pilot intervention study to address problematic and dangerous drinking among young adult college students studying abroad in foreign environments. Despite universities and colleges citing alcohol misuse as the most concerning issue for their students abroad, most institutions offer no empirically-based prevention efforts tailored to this at-risk population. The proposed intervention attempts to fill a major gap for the nearly 333,000 students completing study abroad programs each year by addressing empirically-based and theoretically-informed risk and protective factors of correcting misperceived peer drinking norms and promoting cultural engagement abroad. In addition to preventing heavy and problematic drinking, the intervention seeks to prevent risky behaviors and experience of sexual violence victimization, which are strikingly common among study abroad students and have the potential for lasting physical and psychological effects upon return home.

The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial of a developed intervention with a sample of 1,200 college students studying abroad from 35 U.S. universities and colleges. The brief, online intervention is text and video based and contains evidence-based components of personalized normative feedback to correct students' misperceived drinking norms, content to promote engagement with the cultural experience abroad and addressed difficulties adjusting to life in the foreign environment, and tips and strategies to prevent risky sexual behaviors and sexual violence victimization abroad. Participants will complete online surveys at five time points (predeparture, first month abroad, last month abroad, one-month post-return, and three-months post-return) to assess for intervention effects on drinking, risky sex, and sexual violence outcomes. The investigators will examine whether the mechanisms targeted by the intervention (changes in perceived norms, engagement in the cultural experience abroad) serve as mediators of intervention efficacy.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

1200

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Santa Monica, California, United States, 90407
        • RAND

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 25 years (ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Between the ages of 18 and 25
  • Signed up to study abroad in one of the 12 most popular destinations (i.e., United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, China, Ireland, Australia, Costa Rica, Japan, South Africa, and Mexico
  • Plan to study abroad for between 8 and 21 weeks (approximately one quarter/semester)
  • Have a working email address

Exclusion Criteria:

  • None except not meeting eligibility criteria

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: TREK Study Abroad Program
On-screen personalized normative feedback (PNF) will contain information on the drinking behavior and attitudes about gender- and country-specific study abroad peers. Participants will view text-based tips and strategies and watch clips of prior student abroad students discussing how they met their cultural engagement goals while abroad (Sojourner Adjustment Feedback or SAF). Content focuses around the four aspects of positive sojourner adjustment (social interaction with host nationals, cultural understanding and participation, language development and use, host culture identification) and the two negative sojourner adjustment factors while abroad (i.e., social interaction with co-nationals, homesickness/feeling out of place). The intervention will also contain text- and video-based tips and strategies for protective strategies used abroad to limit experience of risk sex and sexual violence victimization.
Behavioral: PNF + SAF
Personalized normative feedback (PNF) to correct misperceived peer drinking norms abroad + sojourner adjustment feedback (SAF) to promote cultural engagement abroad.
Other Names:
  • TREK
NO_INTERVENTION: Control
Control participants will receive a link to a general website offering study abroad advice (www.studyabroad.com) and will be asked to spend at least 20 to 30 minutes reviewing their institution's study abroad website content, including policies for drinking abroad. This control condition was selected as a form of "treatment as usual" as our conversations with study abroad personnel indicate this is the extent of typical information students receive about alcohol use abroad.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Drinks per week
Time Frame: Past month (30 days)
Total drinks per week in the past 30 days
Past month (30 days)
Binge drinking frequency
Time Frame: Past month (30 days)
Frequency of binge drinking (5+ drinks on one occasion for males; 4+ drinks on one occasion for females)
Past month (30 days)
Alcohol-related consequences
Time Frame: Past month (30 days)
24-item Brief Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire, a measure of negative consequences often used with the college population. The scale contains 24 yes/no items that when summed gives a score from 0 to 24 (score of 24 indicates experience of all 24 alcohol consequences in the past 30 days)
Past month (30 days)
Risky sexual behaviors
Time Frame: Past month (30 days)
Sexual Risk Survey, a 23-item measure designed for and validated with college student samples. The scale yields an overall sexual risk behaviors score based on responses to the 23 items. The scale allows for open-ended responses that are then recoded into ordinal categories for generating an overall score from 0 to 92 (higher scores = higher risk).
Past month (30 days)
Sexual violence victimization
Time Frame: Change in any sexual violence victimization experiences from before study abroad trip through the three months following the completion of the study abroad trip
A scale to assess any sexual violence victimization was created from items modified and informed by items from the Sexual Experiences Survey and the National Drug-Facilitated, Incapacitated, and Forcible Rape study. The items are gender-specific (i.e., separate wording of items for those that identify as men, women, and gender-neutral) and contains 12 items with a yes/no format. Endorsement of any yes response yields an affirmative response to the outcome of experience of any sexual violence
Change in any sexual violence victimization experiences from before study abroad trip through the three months following the completion of the study abroad trip

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

RAND

Collaborators

Loyola Marymount University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (ACTUAL)

May 23, 2019

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

March 30, 2021

Study Completion (ANTICIPATED)

June 30, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 22, 2019

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 24, 2019

First Posted (ACTUAL)

April 25, 2019

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

August 17, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 15, 2021

Last Verified

August 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01AA025909 (NIH)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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