Alcohol-Related Information in Multi-Component Interventions and College Students’ Drinking Behavior

Education-only interventions produce little change in drinking behaviors; but, multi-component prevention programs, which include alcohol information as one feature, can decrease drinking. This study examined the role of alcohol knowledge in a multi-component intervention previously found to reduce first-year female college students’ alcohol consumption. Intervention and control group students completed pre and postintervention assessments of drinking behaviors, and a postintervention assessment of alcohol-knowledge. Intervention students outperformed control students on the measure of alcohol knowledge. However knowledge did not predict drinking outcomes for this group, and it was positively correlated with drinking behaviors for control students. The findings suggest that, although learning took place through the intervention, it was not the mechanism by which the intervention reduced drinking behaviors