Citation

Bravo AJ, Pearson MR, Stevens LE, Henson JM. Subst. Use Misuse 2018; 53(13): 2190-2198.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology , Old Dominion University , Norfolk , Virginia , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10826084.2018.1464026

PMID

29708460

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Alcohol protective behavioral strategies (PBS) are behaviors engaged in immediately prior to, during, after, or instead of drinking with the explicit goal of reducing alcohol use, intoxication, and/or alcohol-related harms. Despite the quantitative support for alcohol PBS as a protective factor among college student drinkers, we know of no qualitative research aimed at determining college student drinkers' perceptions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using PBS.

OBJECTIVES: In the style of a decisional balance exercise, we asked college student drinkers (analytic n = 113) to identify 5 reasons they would not use PBS (cons) and 5 reasons they would use PBS (pros).

METHOD: Participants (majority female, 77.0%) were recruited from a psychology department participant pool at a large, southeastern university in the United States. Within our analytic sample, participants on average consumed 6.38 (SD = 8.16) drinks per typical week of drinking and reported consuming alcohol on average 7.5 days (SD = 5.83) in the last 30 days.

RESULTS: Using a descriptive phenomenological approach, we identified 2 themes for pros (prevention of specific negative alcohol-related consequences and general safety) and 4 themes for cons (goal conflict, ineffectiveness, difficulty of implementation, and negative peer/social repercussions). Overall, participants reported more pros than cons and this discrepancy (i.e., number of PBS pros minus number of PBS cons) was positively related to self-reported frequency of PBS use.

CONCLUSIONS/Importance: Taken together, we hope that clinicians/researchers will probe individual's reasons for choosing to use (or not use) PBS in order to tailor or improve existing PBS-based interventions.

Language: en

Keywords

Protective behavioral strategies; alcohol use; college students; decisional balance; qualitative