Reduction of alcohol-related harm on United States college campuses: The use of personal feedback interventions

This paper reviews research evaluating personalised feedback interventions (PFIs) for reducing the harms associated with alcohol abuse among US college students. PFIs provide students with feedback about their own alcohol use relative to college norms, as well as information about other aspects of their drinking behaviours, related problems and/or perceived risks. Studies conducted in the United States using randomised designs indicate that PFIs are efficacious for reducing various aspects of alcohol use and/or related negative consequences for both high-risk volunteer and mandated college students. To date, these studies have demonstrated that written-feedback-only PFIs are as efficacious as brief in-person PFIs, at least on a short-term duration. Therefore, college administrators should be encouraged to develop interventions to screen students and provide written personal feedback in order to reduce high-risk drinking patterns among college students. Web-based approaches might prove to be a very cost-effective strategy, although more research is needed to determine their efficacy, as well as what aspects of the feedback are the most effective.