Abstract
Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate how community college students with hazardous drinking perceived the usefulness of alcohol protective behavioral strategy text messages (TM-PBS). Methods: Community college students with past hazardous single occasion or weekly drinking (N = 48; 60% female) were randomized to receive 2 TM-PBS on 3 typical drinking days per week for 2 weeks selected by: (1) research investigators (ie, based on clinical and theoretical application); (2) participants (ie, messages highly rated at baseline by the participants); or (3) a random process. Prior to 2 typical drinking days per week, immediately after receiving TMs, we asked: “How useful do you think this strategy will be for you when you drink? Text a number from 1 (not useful) to 5 (very useful).” Results: Response rates for the 12 messages ranged from 72.9% to 87.5%, with no differences in response rates across selection categories (ie, investigator, participant, random). Investigator-selected messages were rated as less useful than messages that were self-selected by participants or messages that were selected at random. Conclusions: TM-PBS chosen a priori by students were perceived as more useful than TM-PBS chosen by investigators, supporting this form of tailoring in alcohol interventions to optimize usefulness.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 70-79 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | American Journal of Health Behavior |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2018 |
Keywords
- Alcohol
- Brief intervention
- Community college students
- Protective behavioral strategies
- Text messages