You have to be prepared to drink: Students’ views about reducing excessive alcohol consumption at university
Abstract
Purpose
Many existing interventions to reduce excessive drinking in university students attempt to target individual cognitions, which ignore the wider contextual features that drive excessive drinking and mark this as an important aspect of university life. The purpose of this paper is to explore students’ views about preventing excessive drinking at university, specifically by using frameworks that take into both account individual and social influences.
Design/methodology/approach
In all, 23 young adults aged 20-30 (12 females; M age=22.91; SD=2.57; 18 students, five recent graduates) took part in semi-structured interviews to explore their views about drinking and measures to reduce excessive consumption. Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
There were three themes identified in the analysis. These themes were named “the role of alcohol in student life”, drinking transitions’, and “prevention challenges” and each had related sub-themes.
Practical implications
Targeting students before they commence their course and highlighting aspects of university life that do not involve alcohol may help to reduce the pressure often felt to drink in social situations. Providing novel, credible alternative socialising options that do not involve alcohol should be explored to determine their acceptability, and their potential to reduce excessive drinking.
Originality/value
Few studies explore what students themselves think about reducing alcohol consumption and most interventions focus on changing individual cognitions rather than features of the social environment. This study highlights that changing social practices related to drinking in combination with targeting individuals may be more fruitful avenue to reduce excessive alcohol consumption.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to all the participants who took part in the study. The authors are also very grateful to Anna Smith and Charlie Stride for their help with transcription. This project was funded by the Oxford Brookes University Central Research Fund. ED designed the study, conducted the interviews and the analysis, and drafted the manuscript. SH recruited the participants, searched for literature and contributed to the analysis. CL coded the interviews, drafted the method section and searched for literature. All authors contributed to and agreed on final version of the manuscript.
Citation
Davies, E.L., Law, C. and Hennelly, S.E. (2018), "You have to be prepared to drink: Students’ views about reducing excessive alcohol consumption at university", Health Education, Vol. 118 No. 1, pp. 2-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/HE-04-2017-0020
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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