Revolutionizing Normative Re-education

Part of paid clinical trials in Los Angeles, California.

Sponsor
Loyola Marymount University
Study ID
NCT04356261
Status
Completed

Conditions

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
18 Years - 20 Years
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • Gamified Personalized Normative Feedback — BEHAVIORAL
    Each week, all players will answer 3 questions of interest about first-year students' attitudes and behaviors (e.g., drinking, partying, exercising, studying, dorm life, etc.) generated by the student players. They will also guess how the typical same-sex student at their University answered the same questions and wager points on how close to the correct answer (group norm) each of their guesses is. Further, they will rate (e.g., thumbs up/thumbs down) the reported behaviors of other players and, then, submit and vote on questions for subsequent rounds. At the end of each week, players will receive enhanced personalized normative feedback feedback on two of the three questions, and receive feedback on how other students rated the answer they reported (preferred-sex injunctive norms).

Study Details

Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF), the most widely-used college alcohol intervention approach, suffers from several limitations innovatively remedied in the current proposal through CampusGANDR, a smartphone-based app for college students that delivers alcohol-related PNF within a weekly game centered around testing first-year students' perceptions about the attitudes and behaviors of their peers in a variety of campus-relevant domains. Five pilot studies suggest that CampusGANDR will be significantly more effective at correcting students' normative misperceptions and reducing their alcohol use than standard PNF, especially among heavier-drinking students and those with greater exposure to alcohol on social media, and that these larger effects are driven by the significantly decreased psychological reactance experienced by students when viewing feedback as part of a game about college life rather than as part of an alcohol-focused program. The current project seeks to 1) evaluate the efficacy of CampusGANDR in a large-scale multi-site trial, 2) identify the optimal dosage of alcohol feedback to deliver within CampusGANDR for correcting norms and reducing alcohol use across 12 weeks of gameplay among non-drinking, moderate-drinking, and heavy-drinking students, 3) examine person-level moderators of these effects, and 4) evaluate CampusGANDR engagement and sustainability among students who play voluntarily but are not involved in the randomized controlled trial.

Key Dates

Start date
Aug 15, 2021
Status verified
Mar 2026
Primary completion
Oct 25, 2024
Completion
Oct 25, 2024

Study Design

Enrollment
1,143 participants (actual)
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION

Arms

  • Placebo Comparator: Control PNF
    Personalized Normative Feedback on non-alcohol/health related topics delivered in all weekly rounds (active control)
  • Active Comparator: Light Dose of Alcohol PNF
    Personalized Normative Feedback on Alcohol Use delivered in 33% of weekly rounds
  • Active Comparator: Heavy Dose of Alcohol PNF
    Personalized Normative Feedback on Alcohol Use delivered in 67% of weekly rounds

Primary Outcome Measure

Change From Baseline Daily Drinking at 4 Months [ Time Frame: baseline, 4 months ]

Locations (1)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
Loyola Marymount UniversityLos AngelesCalifornia90045-

Find similar trials in Los Angeles, CA

By condition
Substance use disorder
By specialty
Behavioral healthAddiction medicine
By research site
Loyola Marymount University· Los Angeles, CA

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