Text Messages Conveying Parent Drinking Limits: A Potential Avenue for Preventing and Reducing Alcohol Use in College Students.

Abstract

Objective: Although previous research has established that students who perceive that their parents have lower drinking limits consume less alcohol, optimal approaches for effectively communicating these limits are less understood. To address this gap in the literature, the present study examined the effects of hypothetical limit-focused text messages on estimated drinking behavior.

Method: Undergraduate college students (N=253) completed an online survey in which they were instructed to imagine a scenario where they were planning to go out at night to an event involving drinking. Participants were randomly assigned to a condition where they would receive one of four hypothetical text messages from their mother and/or father containing a range of drinking limits. They were then asked to report how much alcohol they would realistically consume on this night if they were and were not obligated to check in with their parent at the end of the night.

Results: Hypothetical text messages from mothers and fathers containing lower drinking limits resulted in lower estimated alcohol consumption. A drinking limit of zero resulted in the least amount of expected alcohol consumption but specifying 1-2 drinks as a limit might produce a similar effect if parents also required their student to check-in at the end of the night.

Conclusion: Findings from this study provide initial support for future studies to investigate the effects of limit setting text messages sent from parents on college student drinking, as well as the effects of text messages sent from parents requiring that students check-in.