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Brown shieldBrown shieldBrown University Brown shieldBrown shieldBrown UniversityAlcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University

Family Motivational Interviews for Alcohol-Positive Teens in the ER

Principal Investigator

Anthony Spirito

Professor
Anthony_Spirito@brown.edu

Funding Source

NIAAA

Description

Project REFRAME is a 5-year grant awarded by NIAAA. The PI is Anthony Spirito, PhD, the Co-PI’s are Peter Monti, PhD and Nancy Barnett, PhD, and the Co-I’s are Holly Sindelar, PhD, Suzanne Colby, PhD, Damaris Rohsenow, PhD, and William Lewander, MD. The major purpose of this study is to compare a brief integrated individual and family intervention designed to reduce alcohol use and related problems to an individual teen intervention. The targeted population is underage drinkers (13-17 years old) who have been treated in an Emergency Department (ED) following an alcohol-related event. The intervention is conceptualized as using a “teachable moment” (i.e., shortly after a salient event) to increase family interest in reducing harmful drinking. The experimental intervention integrates an individual Motivational Interview (MI) for the adolescent, based on our research group’s prior work with this intervention, with a brief family intervention, the Family Check-Up (Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003). The experimental condition will be compared to the individual MI only. This design allows us to test the added benefit of the family intervention compared to the benefits often derived from individual treatment. Follow-up interviews will be conducted at 3, 6, and 12 months after the baseline intervention to assess outcome. The specific aims of this proposal are to test the effectiveness of the experimental intervention in reducing alcohol-related problems, alcohol consumption, and other behavior problems compared to the enhanced standard care condition. Second, we will examine whether depressed mood and behavior problems at baseline moderate the effects of the treatment conditions. We will also test whether individual factors (motivation to change behavior) and environmental factors (parent/family influence and peer influence) mediate the relation between the treatment condition and outcomes. We have added community recruitment to the study for underage drinkers who have not had an alcohol-related ED event but who have experimented with alcohol.