A randomized clinical trial: Examining the efficacy of eCHECKUP TO GO combined with a brief parent-based intervention to reduce high school student drinking

Project Summary/Abstract Underage drinking is a significant problem in the United States. Prevalence rates suggest 61.6% of high school students have used alcohol by their senior year and 1 in 3 students report alcohol use past 30-days. High school risky drinking is associated with negative consequences (e.g., academic problems, hangovers, unwanted sex, dating violence, suicide attempts, illicit drug use, and impaired driving). While past research supports the efficacy of interventions in delaying the initiation of alcohol use implemented in middle school and early high school, research shows drinking by older high schoolers is problematic and interventions for older high schoolers remain limited. Brief web-based personalized feedback interventions (e.g., eCHECKUP TO GO16 [eCTG]) that do not require staffing or costs to implement to large numbers of students have shown promise but have been limited to short-term follow up. Decades of research suggest specific individual-level factors (peer normative beliefs,31-33 drinking motives and expectancies34-37) impact high school student drinking. The eCTG’s content addresses each of these influences. Additionally, students’ context has been shown to influence these individual-level factors. Chief among the contextual factors are parental influences. Despite the common misperception that parents’ influence attenuates as students age, brief-parent-based interventions delivered in print (PBI) or online to tablets, computers or phones (ePBI) alter the manner in which parents communicate and act with their teens, which in turn, change student individual-level factors, drinking and consequences.38-44, 71,162 The goal of the proposed research is to greatly expand on these findings by using a rigorous long-term longitudinal RCT, guided by a comprehensive theoretical model, to examine and strengthen the effects on a nationally representative sample of high school juniors and seniors. The current project will test the efficacy of eCTG, alone and combined with an e-Parent-based Intervention (ePBI), for junior and senior high school students using a nationally representative sample. High school students (N=900) will be randomized into one of two groups: eCTG + ePBI (i.e., eCTG+) or eCTG. Data will be collected at baseline, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month follow-ups (to examine long term effects). Aims are to: 1) examine the effects of combining eCTG and ePBI (short and long term) on teen drinking relative to eCTG alone to reduce alcohol use and consequences among high school juniors and seniors, 2) examine mediators of interventions that directly influence drinking and consequences, and 3) identify moderators of intervention efficacy.