Internet intervention could help curb drinking among university students
By Sarah Walker
A new web based counseling service could be used in the future to help curb drinking among undergraduate university students a study has found.
More than 7,200 Australian undergraduate students aged 17-24 took part in the alcohol use screening test. From this, researchers found that more than 2,400 of the respondents qualified as hazardous or harmful drinkers. Half of these students were placed in an internet based intervention group with motivational assessments and personalised feedback and the other half were placed in a control group with no feedback.
The researches followed up with the students after one month and again after six months after the initial screening test.
The counseling service provided information to the students about reducing alcohol associated health risks, estimated blood-alcohol concentration during a heaving drinking session, an estimated cost of drinking and comparisons to other students’ drinking, and links to resources for help with drinking problems.
“After one month, participants receiving intervention drank less often, smaller quantities per occasion and less alcohol overall than did the controls,” wrote Kypros Kypri of the University of Newcastle on Australia and the University of Otago in New Zealand, and colleagues.
The research suggested that, “Given the scale on which proactive Web-based electronic screening and brief intervention (e-SBI) can be delivered and its acceptability to student drinkers, we can be optimistic that a widespread application of this intervention would produce a benefit in this population group.”
The e-SBI program would be available free for non-for-profit purposes. Given the initial success of this application, the program could reasonably be expanded to other areas including high schools, general practices and hospitals.
The study can be found here
