Drunkenness, fighting, vandalism and other results of heavy drinking concern
both college officials and police departments. College and university administrations
are always looking for ways to reduce the damage caused by overdrinking.
A series of studies in the June issue of the journal Alcoholism:
Clinical and Experimental Research suggests ways to do that.
Researcher Tracy O’Leary Tevyaw, Ph.D., and two
colleagues from Brown University reported that students required by college
disciplinary
boards to attend alcohol intervention programs shared some characteristics
with fellow students but differed in some other ways.
“Non-mandated students reported significantly higher grades in school
and a lower percentage of heavy drinking days in the past month than mandated
students,” says Tevyaw. They also scored lower on tests for alcohol-related
problems.
Both sets of students perceived similar levels of drinking around them.
They both estimated that the average college student downed an average
of seven drinks per drinking session, leading Tevyaw to suggest that all
students might benefit from these interventions.
Other researchers compared two different approaches to move students away
from problem drinking.
Brian Borsari, Ph. D., of Brown and Kate B. Carey, Ph.D., of Syracuse
University found that alcohol education and brief motivational interventions
both helped students.
The alcohol education approach presented factual knowledge
about alcohol and its effects without tying it either to individual drinking
or to
personal goals to cut alcohol use. The brief motivational interventions
took the
same information but placed it in the context of the students’ own
experiences with alcohol: why they drink, how often, or what their blood
alcohol levels are after heavy drinking.
“A general trend emerged in both groups for high-risk drinking and
alcohol-related problems to decrease following the interventions,” say
Borsari and Carey. “However, the brief motivational intervention
group demonstrated significantly greater reduction in alcohol-related
problems.”
The interventions stuck with the students, they add. An individual one-hour
session was linked to less drinking six months later. Students responded
well to the empathetic, nonjudgmental style of both programs. Generally,
these students may prefer approaches that seek to reduce the harm of drinking,
rather than push them to abstain entirely from drinking.
That offers some hope to both students and college officials, says researcher
Nancy P. Barnett, Ph.D., of Brown University.
“These are indeed students to be concerned about, in that they show
patterns of alcohol consumption and problems that are more extreme than
their peers,” she says. “Campus counselors have several good
alternatives for working with referred students.”
