The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a new online program called ASSIST – Alcohol-focused Support of Survivors In Sororities Training. The training is designed to help sorority members learn how to support friends who have had an unwanted sexual experience, both during the initial discussion of the experience and when navigating recovery in the longer-term. This multiphase study involves (1) developing the training in collaboration with students and campus stakeholders, (2) improving the training content and design through individual interviews with sorority members, (3) conducting an open trial of the training within one chapter, and then (4) conducting a pilot cluster randomized trial to evaluate feasibility and initial efficacy of the training. If found to be effective, this training could be widely disseminated and facilitate positive change in social contexts where survivors recover.
Patient Population: College Students
THRIVE Study
This is a study of an app intended to support recent sexual assault survivors, called THRIVE. In a prior grant, we pilot tested THRIVE and found that it reduced risk for alcohol misuse and posttraumatic stress. In the first year of this grant, we aim to revise the app to increase usability and inclusivity. In the second through fifth years of the grant, we will conduct a larger randomized controlled trial of multiple versions of the app among college students who have experienced sexual assault in the past 12 weeks. This will allow us to identify the most effective and low-burden version of THRIVE. If we are successful in identifying a highly effective and efficient version of THRIVE, this intervention would represent a highly-scalable strategy to reduce the substantial burden of posttraumatic stress and alcohol misuse on student survivors and campus service systems.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Outreach Communications Support
This project focused on assessing college students’ understanding of commonly used terms related to alcohol use and related consequences. Further, our team worked to update NIAAA statistics related to college student drinking and propose additional options for ongoing updates to their findings.
Disseminating a user-friendly guide: Advancing the science of intervention adaptation and improving access to evidence-based psychological treatment
Adaptation of evidence-based practices and programs (EBPs) is a necessary component of the implementation process. EBPs must be adapted to function with the constraints of real-world practice settings, providers’ expertise, and patients’ needs. The science of intervention adaptation is hungry for well-defined methods of EBP adaptation to guide decision making. A how-to guide for EBP adaptation titled MODIFI: Making Optimal Decisions for Intervention Flexibility during Implementation, is under development with NIMH funding (F32 MH116623). MODIFI will be disseminated via multiple strategies locally, nationally, and internationally. Dissemination of MODIFI will improve the practice of intervention adaptation by providing practitioners with a how-to guide that is (a) evidence-based, (b) usable, and (c) supported by the expert consensus of implementation practitioners and researchers.
Project SELF
The objective of this research project is to evaluate whether changes in cognitive factors can reduce hazardous drinking among current and graduating college students. These studies seek to evaluate naturalistic (Study 1) and experimentally-induced (Study 2) changes. The naturalistic study is currently following a sample of recent college graduates, with assessments every 4 months, beginning just prior to graduation through the 2-year period after graduation. The experimental study will manipulate the cognitive factors (via narrative writing tasks) to increase self-efficacy, decrease alcohol craving, and ultimately, reduce hazardous drinking.
Project AMPS
The goal of this project is to develop and test a 3-week mobile-app that tracks mood, alcohol use, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol-related consequences 2x a day and provides real-time personalized feedback using individuals’ daily experiences and intentions. The app is designed for students attending 2-year/community colleges and 4-year colleges. This work is significant because there is currently very little attention paid specifically for 2-year/community college students and this app provides real-time information on a platform that nearly 100% of young adults have and are accessing hourly.
MC2: Motivating Campus Change
The application was built on our prior intervention trials to further explore conditions under which normative feedback may reduce college drinking. Specifically, we proposed to contrast efficacy of personalized normative feedback (PNF) regarding specific reference groups (i.e., gender-, ethnicity-, and residence-specific feedback) versus a generic (typical college student) reference group, evaluate identification with the normative reference group in moderating efficacy of PNF regarding descriptive drinking norms, and evaluate unique and combined influences of PNF regarding descriptive and injunctive norms on drinking behavior.
