Exercise as an intervention for sedentary hazardous drinking college students: A pilot study

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Highlights

  • Exercise is proposed to reduce drinking in sedentary hazardous drinking students.

  • Self-reported exercise frequency increased over time for all participants.

  • Participants receiving the MET + CM intervention reported exercising more often.

  • No changes in drinking were reported.

Abstract

Young adults 18–24 years have the highest rates of problems associated with alcohol use among all age groups, and substance use is inversely related to engagement in substance-free activities. This pilot study investigated the promotion of one specific substance-free activity, exercise, on alcohol use in college students. Thirty-one sedentary college students who engaged in hazardous drinking (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test scores ≥8) were randomized to one of two conditions: (a) one 50-min session of motivational enhancement therapy (MET) focused on increasing exercise, or (b) one 50-min session of MET focused on increasing exercise plus 8 weeks of contingency management (CM) for adhering to specific exercise activities. All participants completed evaluations at baseline and post-treatment (2-months later) assessing exercise participation and alcohol use. Results of the pilot study suggest the interventions were well received by participants, the MET + CM condition showed an increased self-reported frequency of exercise in comparison to the MET alone condition, but other indices of exercise, physical fitness, and alcohol use did not differ between the interventions over time. These results suggest that a larger scale trial could better assess efficacy of this well received combined intervention. Investigation in other clinically relevant populations is also warranted.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 31 sedentary hazardous drinking college students. Individuals were recruited via screening efforts, flyers posted on campus, and email list-serve announcements. As few students voluntarily seek alcohol-reducing interventions, the ads focused on recruitment of individuals who desired to become more physically active. A screening questionnaire was administered in university common areas, study information sessions, and over the telephone. The screen consisted of demographics,

Results

As shown in Fig. 1, 352 individuals were screened of whom 52 (14.8%) were deemed potentially eligible participants. Of those 52 individuals, 31 (59.6%) were eligible, signed informed consent, and randomized to an intervention condition, which represented 8.8% of all individuals screened. Less than 15% of potentially eligible individuals were not interested in participating in the study.

Table 1 shows baseline characteristics for participants randomized to each treatment condition. No significant

Discussion

Results from this pilot study suggest that sedentary hazardous drinking college students are interested in participating in an exercise intervention and will engage in interventions that seek to facilitate initiation and maintenance of exercise. Moreover, adding CM to MET was successful in increasing the self-reported frequency of exercising, but the addition of CM did not improve any other self-report or objective indices of exercise relative to MET alone. On average, participants exercised

Acknowledgments

This research and preparation of this report was funded by National Institutes of Health Grants P60-AA-003510 and R21-AA-017717.

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