Effective Intervention Reduce Alcohol Consumption In College Students Nursing Essay

Effective Intervention Reduce Alcohol Consumption In College Students Nursing EssayHeavy intoxi give the gatet consumption among college students remains a concern across colleges and universities in the United States. Approximately 80% of all told college students drink, including nearly 60% of students ages 18 to 20 (Johnston, OMalley, Bachman, Schulenberg, 2008). Even more troubling, 40.1% of full- time college students minor for legal intoxication engage in binge drinking and 16.6% of students engage in heavy drinking (National Survey on Drug Use and health NSDUH, 2006). Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks on the same occasion on at least 1 day in the past 30 eld, bringing a persons blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 or preceding(prenominal) (National Institute on Alcohol profane and Alcoholism NIAAA, 2004NSDUH, 2006). Consuming five or more drinks on the same occasion on each of 5 or more days in the past 30 days is considered heavy drinkin g (NSDUH, 2006). All heavy alcohol users argon also binge alcohol users.Many colleges and universities have use numerous initiatives ranging from enhanced enforcement to deferred community-wide celebratory events, but with little or no success (Turner, Perkins, Bauerle, 2008). College counselor-at-laws and health education centers have been the main source of counseling for students who raven alcohol. Students have the opportunity to meet with counselors to discuss their alcohol use and their interest in moderating alcohol consumption and receive change prescriptive feedback, advice, and behavioural strategies for avoiding alcohol-related harm (Barnett, Murphy, Colby, Monti, 2007). Although this traditional method is still used by counselors, advances in technology be allowing counselors to use bare-ass and innovative methods to educate students on the dangers of profuse alcohol consumption. Key programs include wireless devices, e-interventions, and cybercounseling.Wirele ss devices provide counselors with an interactive method of reducing drinking and alcohol consequences in college students. They range from mobile devices such as cell phones and handheld computers to audience response technology, or clickers (Bernhardt et al., 2009 Killos, Hancock, Wattenmaker McGann, Keller, 2010 Labrie, Hummer, Huchting, Neighbors, 2009 LeGreco, Hess, Lederman, Schuwerk, LaValley, 2010 Turner et al., 2008). Compared to one-on-one counseling sessions, soft accessibility and the ability to assess a base of students during one session are advantages of using this intervention model. The use of such technology varies, but the outcome is the same- providing fast and accurate minds close college students own drinking habits and the drinking habits of their peers (Bernhardt et al., 2009 Killos et al., 2010 Labrie et al., 2009 LeGreco et al., 2010 Turner et al., 2008).Mobile devices would alleviate the need for pen and paper assessments. The Handheld Assisted Net work Diary ( touch) is an potent and valid method of evaluating effortless drinking among college students (Bernhardt et al., 2009). Rather than counselors expecting a student to complete a daily assessment and have them return it to them after 30 days, counselors can have students accede this same data on mobile devices. Although more students are likely to complete a pen and paper assessment than HAND, Bernhardt et al. (2009) found no important difference between the two methods when students recorded their total drinks, number of drinking days, and drinks per drinking day. This suggests that those students who did complete HAND were comfortable with using the device and provided accurate education mistakable to those who completed pen and paper assessments. The difference in completion rates between the two methods is due to the design of HAND students have a special time-frame to complete the days assessment and are locked out of their devices at a predetermined time. Thi s inhibits students from completing missed assessments. The disadvantage of students self-reporting data in the HAND should not diminish its advantage of world able to be completed daily with little deviation from a students active lifestyle (Bernhardt et al., 2009). Although HAND whitethorn sound promising, it should be noted that Bernhardt et al. developed this program and any of their published results may be biased.Audience response technology, commonly known as clickers, is a second type of wireless device used by counselors and health educators. Clickers are used in group interactive-feedback alcohol education sessions to decrease students comprehend norms of how much other students drink (Killos et al., 2010 Labrie et al., 2009). During these sessions, a counselor or health educator would ask a group of students a series of multiple prime(a) questions pertaining to their own drinking habits and their perception of their peers drinking habits. Students can then simultaneous ly respond and have their answers recorded and displayed to the group in graphical form. Killos et al. (2010) found that students who go steady at least one of these sessions are more likely to believe that the typical student drinks less alcoholic beverages than perceived those who do not understand such sessions are more likely to over-perceive the amount of alcohol a typical student consumes. This demonstrates that group clicker sessions are effective in positively influencing students beliefs about their peers drinking behaviors (Killos et al., 2010).Clicker sessions are practical because they can be designed for any variety of student groups including resident assistants, freshmen orientation groups, and high-risk drinkers such as Greeks and athletes (Killos et al., 2010). Labrie et al. (2009) examined the long suit of one type of group intervention, brief live interactive normative group intervention (BLING), on collegiate athletes. During a one-month follow-up after the c licker session, athletes showed manifest of changes in perceived norms, leading to changes in their own drinking habits no further changes were seen at a two-month follow-up (Labrie et al., 2009). This suggests that clicker sessions are a fast and effective model for educating students.Clicker sessions have expanded to include two- management communication models promoting health and encouraging dialogue, rather than the original one-way communication from facilitator to student. Lets Talk About It, for example, is a simulation game engaging students about decision-making and drinking on a college campus (LeGreco et al., 2010). It was created to generate, identify, and challenge the social norms that students utilize to construct and reconstruct reality through taradiddle sharing, facilitated learning, and inter-student dialogue. A scenario prompt about going to a party with a friend was given to a group of students and they were asked what they would do in a particular situation (e.g. your drunk best friend is about to leave with a boy she just met). LeGreco et al. (2010) concluded that facilitators can encourage students to complete the story of a night of drinking, filling the gaps with personal experiences, choices, and narrative details by utilizing incomplete scenarios. The advantage of using programs like this is that simulations can provide a safe perpetrate for individuals to critically examine their more risky behaviors and experiment with different possibilities for healthy changes (LeGreco et al., 2010).Wireless devices are think to expose the truth about perceived norms of college drinking. Although the studies mentioned above have shown the effectiveness of these devices, particular limitations cannot go unnoted. The major concern is that these programs only evaluated the short-term effects of the devices, whether it was 30 days or 2 months. More query is needed to examine any maintained changes and long-term effects of using wireless device s as an alcohol intervention in college students. Another concern is attending and participation rates. During the clicker sessions, the response results that are presented back to the students could be misleading if a handful of students do not respond to any of the questions. Since this is a device that is intended for rapid responses, facilitators would be spending unnecessary time trying to figure out which clickers did not answer any of the questions.E-interventionsComputer programs are changing the way college students are learning about the dangers of heavy drinking. Aside from changing perceived norms, these programs are increasing students readiness to change their drinking behaviors (Chiauzzi, Green, Lord, Thum, Goldstein, 2005 Moore, Soderquist, Werch, 2005 Murphy, Dennhardt, Skidmore, Martens, McDevitt-Murphy, 2010 Walters, Miller, Chiauzzi, 2005). Electronic interventions, or e-interventions, are directing students away from face-to-face counseling sessions and mor e towards self-education with personalized feedback and preventative interventions (Chiauzzi et al., 2005 Doumas Andersen, 2009 Murphy et al., 2010).Counselors may be wary about assessing students drinking behaviors extraneous of a traditional office visit. Moore et al. (2005) addressed this as they studied the feasibility and efficacy of a binge drinking prevention intervention for college students via the internet. Students were sent any four email-based newsletters or four identical print-based newsletters in the mail. In each web newsletter, there was a link to a short process-evaluation survey. Mail newsletters had a hard copy of the survey that would be mailed back. A greater percentage of students receiving the email-based newsletter completed the process-evaluation surveys than did the students receiving the print-based newsletter (Moore et al., 2005). This could be explained by many drives, including easy accessibility and convenience. Students who are receiving the new sletter via email are already online and can simply click on the links the other students would have to take the time to complete the surveys and mail them back. Interestingly, Moore et al. (2005) observed that the greatest results in decreasing the number of drinks per occasion and the number of occasions feeling drunk were seen in binge drinkers. Students and counselors too would benefit from using an email-based intervention. Students are comfortable with internet communications and it is fast and convenient for counselors, the intervention is cheaper than printing materials, assessment results are easy to enter, and there is a higher response rate from students (Moore et al., 2005).E-interventions are different from all other types of interventions because they promptly give students personalized feedback (Bersamin, Paschall, Fearnow-Kenney, Wyrick, 2007 Chiauzzi et al., 2005 Doumas Haustveit, 2008 Doumas Andersen, 2009 Murphy et al., 2010 Thombs et al., 2007 Walters et al. , 2005). These programs provide students with personalized information as part of the intervention or the intervention itself. Most programs rely heavily on educational content, providing text information about the physical, social, and behavioral effects of alcohol in the form of interactive games and quizzes (Walters et al., 2005).Electronic Checkup to Go (e-CHUG) is a 15-minute intervention designed to reduce high-risk drinking by providing personalized feedback and normative data regarding drinking and its consequences. High-risk students who had access to e-CHUG reduced their weekly drinking quantity by approximately 30% compared to a 14% increase in students who did not have access to e-CHUG (Doumas Andersen, 2009). There was also a 30% reduction in reported alcohol-related problems for high-risk students in the e-CHUG group in similitude with an 84% increase in reported alcohol-related problems for high-risk students in the control group (Doumas Andersen, 2009).MyStudentBo dy (MSB) provides students with tailored motivational feedback about high-risk drinking according to sexual practice (Chiauzzi et al., 2005). Both students having access to MSB and those who did not have access were asked to complete 4 weekly 20-minute sessions. The respective websites was available for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so students had flexible access. Chiauzzi et al. (2005) saw a significant decrease in the number of binge episodes in a typical week among all participants and a rapid decrease in the average consumption among persistent heavy drinkers who had access to MSB.Thombs et al. (2007) were the first to study normative feedback on the basis of a known blood-alcohol concentration. At night in the anteroom halls, freshmens BAC would be measured and recorded. The next day, these students were directed to a website where they found their BAC measure from the night before, the average BAC of the residence hall, and interactive activities. The results, however, wer e unexpected. BAC levels were lower in the residence hall that just had access to their own BAC level (Thombs et al., 2007). This could have been due to a number of reasons. The most practical reason, though, is that just about students may have either increased their drinking on some nights or avoided providing data on nights they did not drink (Thombs et al., 2007).These automated interventions reflect the contributions of mailed self-help and in-person approaches. However, the advantage of the computer is the ability to provide much more information upon demand (Walters et al., 2005). As new programs are being developed, some questions remain unanswered. Although there is no clear relationship between the length of the intervention and its effectiveness (Walters et al., 2005), it is still unclear as to what type of information makes a difference and which approach is most relevant to college students.E-interventions have given counselors and students much to enjoy, but there is evidence that computer-based interventions are not as effective as in-person interventions with a counselor (Barnett et al., 2007 Carey, Henson, Carey, Maisto, 2009 Croom et al., 2009). These studies compared Alcohol 101 Plus with traditional brief motivational interventions (BMI). Students participating in the BMI were found to reduce drinking and related consequences (Carey et al., 2009). Similarly, at a 12-month follow-up from the initial intervention, students using a computer-delivered intervention were consuming a greater number of drinks per occasion than at baseline (Barnett et al., 2007).E-interventions digest on preventative measures and providing personalized feedback. Throughout the literature on these programs, researchers have noted a few limitations. The most commonly noted limitation is the inability to generalize the effectiveness of e-interventions. The students that are more likely to use such programs are those who report binge drinking and heavy drinking. Al so, some students may recollect this type of intervention adequate, while others would prefer meeting with a counselor and work collaboratively on how to reduce their drinking habits. A second limitation is similar to that of the wireless devices. These studies on e-interventions only examined immediate and short-term effects of the program on alcohol reduction. Research with longer follow-ups would be ideal to examine the consonance of the students changed behaviors. Third, consideration should be given to the willingness of the university to invest in these computer programs. Lastly, concern arises with the possibility of computers and the programs either malfunctioning or crashing. This could result in delayed feedback for students and prejudice of data for counselors.CybercounselingLittle, if any, research has examined the use of cybercounseling in reducing college drinking. Cybercounseling is the practice of providing professional counseling and information to clients when b oth are in separate or aloof locations and they utilize electronic means to communicate over the Internet (Maples Han, 2008). E-mail, electronic bulletin boards, and chat rooms are all forms of cybercounseling.Counselors and students alike see the disadvantages of cybercounseling as outweighing the advantages. Maples Hans (2008) make it clear that communication by e-mail could pose a number of potential ethical concerns regarding the protection of students privacy. For instance, email accounts are prone to being hacked and the information between counselor and student could be compromised. Also, the absence of verbal and nonverbal cues in cybercounseling makes miscommunication between counselor and students more common (Maples Han, 2008). Proper assessment and interventions become non-existent when there is uncertainty about what is being said. This is especially true for counselors. Counselors are prone to use informal language while instant put across with students students a re more likely to decrease their perceptions of the counselor as an expert and trustworthy (Haberstroh, 2010). Lastly, instant messaging is time consuming, especially if the student, the counselor, or both are slow typers (Haberstroh, Parr, Bradley, Morgan-Fleming, Gee, 2008). This creates a time-lag between responses that can lead to being distracted and slowing the pace of the session.SummaryExcessive college drinking remains a discipline concern across all college and universities. Technology has made it possible for counselors to expand on the models of interventions used to educate college students and prevent heavy drinking. A few of these new interventions include wireless devices such as cell phones, smart phones, and handheld computers, clickers, and computer programs. Each method provides a unique, interactive experience for both the counselor and the student. Wireless devices are typically used to expose the truth about perceived norms of college drinking, while e-inter ventions are more focused on preventative measures and providing personalized feedback. With all technology, there exist flaws. One such flaw is seen in cybercounseling. Too many potential problems exist that the disadvantages of cybercounseling outweigh the advantages.ConclusionTechnology is rapidly advancing and colleges are trying to keep up with it so that it may provide fresh solutions to existing problems such as alcohol consumption among college students. The programs that are available today vary in their purpose and their efficacy. Counselors need to consider what they want to use the intervention model for and then further research how they can get the most out of that particular intervention. E-interventions are the most popular alcohol prevention interventions thousands of colleges and universities have implemented such programs among freshmen orientation groups and collegiate athletes. The reason for its popularity is that it is inexpensive, fast, and easy to use. Since an array of computer programs and software already exist, researchers today should be focusing on how to use these programs in the most efficient way possible. This includes perusing the required length of the intervention to be effective and when the best time would be to use such programs.