A longitudinal Study of Parent Communication with College Students about Alcohol

Pennsylvania State University, The, University Park PA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The present study is a continuation of a novel program of research focusing on parental influences on college student drinking. College student drinking remains an important public health problem and there is growing evidence suggesting that consequences are increasing for older students aged 21-24. Research has shown that parents are an important part of comprehensive community prevention efforts and effective as a stand- alone prevention approach. Despite the utility of parents, a notable gap exists in the prevention literature after the freshman year. Further, there is a small literature to inform prevention efforts involving parents of college students and they tend to examine a limited number of constructs. Although there have been studies of parent interventions targeting adolescents and college students, no studies have comprehensively examined variables influencing parents'motivations to communicate with college students throughout their entire college experience. To date our own program of research has focused on implementing and evaluating preventive parent-based interventions for typical freshman, high-risk freshman, and high-risk environments. Thus, the examination of underlying variables influencing parents'motivations to communicate with their sons/daughters that will increase the efficacy and reach of future intervention efforts to larger population of students extending past the freshman year represents the next logical step in the continuation of our research program. To this extent, the research will assess and analyze 1800 parent-student dyads longitudinally across the entire college experience to examine the: 1) Examine the processes by which predictors and mediating constructs of parental communication about alcohol, are associated with parent-student communications;2) Examine the processes by which parent-student communications about alcohol predict student drinking mediating constructs and subsequent student drinking outcomes;and 3) Examine developmental changes using a prospective longitudinal design between parent communication constructs and student drinking outcomes through the entire college experience. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: College student drinking remains an important public health problem and there is growing evidence suggesting that consequences are increasing for older students aged 21-24. Research has shown that parents are an important part of comprehensive community prevention efforts and effective as a stand-alone prevention approach. Despite the utility of parents, a notable gap exists in the prevention literature after the freshman year. Although there have been studies of parent interventions targeting adolescents and college students, no studies have comprehensively examined variables influencing parents'motivations to communicate with college students throughout their entire college experience. Thus, the examination of variables that influences parents'motivations to communicate with their sons/daughters to increase the efficacy and reach of future intervention efforts to larger population of students extending past the freshman year is warranted.