Weekend Text Messages Increase Protective Behavioral Strategies and Reduce Harm Among College Drinkers

Steven M. Edwards, Antover P. Tuliao, Joseph L.D. Kennedy, Dennis E. McChargue

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

The current study examined whether a brief text messaging intervention compared to an assessment only/no treatment control would differentially increase protective behavioral strategies (PBS) that were associated with reducing negative alcohol-related negative consequences during football game weekends. Eligible participants (n = 161) were college students who had at least one drinking occasion in the past 30 days. Participants completed a baseline assessment prior to the experimental weekend before being randomly assigned to receive either a text-message condition that instructed students to use PBS or an assessment only/no treatment condition. Participants in the text messaging condition received a message on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of a game weekend. Follow-up assessments were completed within 3 days following the experimental weekend. After controlling for amount of use, results suggest that for game day, those in the text-messaging condition reported significantly higher utilization of PBS and significantly lower negative alcohol-related consequences as compared with the assessment only/no treatment condition. Overall, the results highlight the importance of text messaging as an alternative intervention method that minimizes harm associated with drinking during football game weekends.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)395-401
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Technology in Behavioral Science
Volume5
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2020

Keywords

  • Alcohol
  • Protective behavioral strategies
  • Text-messaging

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Applied Psychology
  • Health(social science)
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Science Applications

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