The effects of protective behavioral strategies on heavy drinking following a pure motivational interviewing intervention

ABSTRACT

Background: Protective behavioral strategies (PBS) are cognitive-behavioral strategies that students use to prevent risky drinking. Prior work supports PBS as a mechanism of change following a brief motivational intervention (BMI) among college students. This study investigated the necessity of discussing PBS by examining changes in PBS use and drinking following an alcohol intervention that used the parent method of Motivational Interviewing (MI), or Pure MI. Methods: Data came from a pilot study that looked at the effects of Pure MI that targeted risky social drinking behavior. The study comprised 42 college students who endorsed hazardous drinking in the last 2 weeks and social anxiety symptoms. Participants completed measures of safe and heavy drinking behaviors at baseline and one-month follow-up. Results: The results showed that PBS use increased from baseline to one-month follow-up. Further, the reduction in heavy drinking in social situations was partially explained by an increase in PBS use from pre- to post-intervention. Conclusions: Despite not introducing PBS into discussions during the MI intervention, we found that students who used more PBS reported reduced heavy drinking in social situations. Implications from the study suggest that interventions focused on student motivation rather than knowledge can promote safe and reduce hazardous drinking behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivational interviewing
• heavy drinking
• social anxiety
• protective behavioral strategies
• college students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contribution

MCH conceived of and managed and contributed to the pilot intervention study. MCH, FDK, and JG took the lead in writing this manuscript. All authors, MCH, FDK, JG, and MH, provided critical feedback and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MH, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism under grant: [L30-AA0270269]; National Institute on Drug Abuse under grant K23-DA052646. The funding organization had no further role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.