Outcomes of a Brief Motivational Intervention for Heavy Alcohol Use in Racial or Ethnic Minority Compared to White Emerging Adults

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study used secondary data from a randomized controlled trial of a Brief Motivational Intervention (BMI) to examine whether Non-White participants had different treatment results compared to White participants.

Methods

The outcome variables of this study were divided into primary outcomes (heavy drinking and consequences associated with alcohol use) and secondary outcomes (cognitive variables such as motivation to change alcohol use, and behavioral variables, including protective behavioral strategies). Linear regression analyses were conducted with the PROCESS macro for SPSS, to test if race or ethnicity moderated the relationship between BMI and each treatment outcome. Data was collected at two time points, six weeks and three months after treatment.

Results

This study showed that race or ethnicity did not moderate treatment results for the four outcome variables. Additional within-group effect sizes were calculated for all racial and ethnic categories, showing that Hispanic/Latine and Black participants had larger effect sizes in all the outcome variables.

Discussion

The discussion examines the potential strength of Motivational Interviewing due to its client-centered spirit, which naturally allows for incorporating values and identity-based factors, such as culture, into the session.

Conclusion

The results suggest similar BMI outcomes among White and Non-White emerging adults who engage in heavy drinking, potentially due to its client-centered approach. This is a preliminary study, and the results are therefore tentative.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivational interview
• underrepresented populations
• alcohol use

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. This work focuses on individuals that are either from a racial or ethnic minority background (Hispanic/Latine and any race other than White).

2. The age range selected as the inclusion criterion for this study (17 to 20 years old) was younger than how emerging adults are typically defined because the project was designed to be delivered during the transition from high school to work, specifically to those not going on to a four-year college or university. The eligibility period began three months before leaving/graduating high school (HS) and ended 12 months after.

3. The Strategies to Limit Drinking Scale was not administered at baseline to decrease the odds of assessment reactivity in the participants. This variable is divided into seven sub-scales that are often analyzed individually (Magill et al., 2017). For this study, this measure will be analyzed in the seven sub-scales and in total.

4. The behavioral secondary outcomes were also analyzed in their seven sub-scales. None of the models showed a statistically significant interaction.

Additional information

Funding

Author efforts were partly supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health Under Award Number NIMHD (U54MD012393), FIU Research Center in Minority Institutions.The secondary data used in this study came from research funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, grants #AA023194 awarded to M. Magill, #AA016000 awarded to S. M. Colby.