Objective: Health care providers using brief alcohol-related health messaging is an effective manner of reducing risky drinking; however, research is needed to guide the content of such messages. The present study compared current drinkers' and nondrinkers' perspectives on the value of four different alcohol-related messages and the hypothetical impact of the messages on intentions to reduce drinking.
Method: Undergraduates (n = 286 current drinkers, n = 101 nondrinkers) from a large, public, Southern Plains university identified primarily as White (82.9%) and female (70%), with a mean age of 19.98 years. They viewed four video recordings containing different alcohol-related messages in random order and were asked to rate how likely they were to change their drinking behaviors after watching each video.
Results: All participants generally had a comparably positive appraisal of all four messages. Among current drinkers, one-way analyses of variance revealed significant differences across messages for intention to change drinking frequency, F(3, 260) = 5.69, p = .001, ηp2 = .06, and quantity, F(3, 263) = 4.95, p = .002, ηp2 = .05. Post hoc tests showed that the condition warning students of severe consequences resulted in higher intentions to reduce drinking compared with other conditions describing less severe consequences, drinking norms, or protective behavioral strategies. No significant differences emerged among nondrinkers.
Conclusions: Despite mixed research regarding the effectiveness of fear-based warning messages in reducing high-risk drinking, the message containing severe alcohol-related consequences evoked the greatest hypothetical intentions to reduce quantity and frequency of drinking. Future studies should track actual drinking behaviors longitudinally following each message.