Background:
Hazardous drinking is a leading modifiable cause of mortality and morbidity among young people. Screening and brief intervention (SBI) is a key strategy to reduce alcohol-related harm in the community, and web-based approaches (e-SBI) have advantages over practitioner-delivered approaches, being cheaper, more acceptable, administrable remotely and infinitely scalable. An efficacy trial at a single university showed that this 10-minute intervention could reduce drinking by 11% for at least 6 months among 17-24 year-old undergraduate hazardous drinkers. The e-SBINZ study is designed to examine the effectiveness of e-SBI across a range of universities and among Maori and non-Maori students in New Zealand.
Methods:
The e-SBINZ study comprises two parallel, double blind, multi-site, individually randomised controlled trials. This paper outlines the background and design of the trials, which are recruiting 17-24 year-old students from seven of New Zealand’s eight universities. Maori and non-Maori students are being sampled separately and are invited by e-mail to complete a web questionnaire including the AUDIT-C. Those who score >4 will be randomly allocated to no further contact until follow-up (control) or to assessment and personalised feedback (intervention) via computer. Follow-up assessment will occur 5 months later in second semester. Recruitment, consent, randomisation, intervention and follow-up are all online. Primary outcomes are (i) total alcohol consumption, (ii) frequency of drinking, (iii) amount consumed per typical drinking occasion, (iv) the proportions exceeding medical guidelines for acute and chronic harm, and (v) scores on an academic problems scale.DiscussionThe trial will provide information on the effectiveness of e-SBI in reducing hazardous drinking across diverse university student populations with separate effect estimates for Maori and non-Maori students.Trial registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) ACTRN12610000279022