The authors of this paper aimed to determine the effectiveness of early, computerized brief interventions on alcohol and cannabis use by young people who are high or risky consumers of either one or both substances, by synthesizing data from randomized controlled trials; they provide a brief summary before discussing their review process, data collection and analysis, and results.
This Campbell systematic review examines research on the effectiveness of early, computerized brief interventions on alcohol and cannabis use by young people who are high or risky consumers of either one or both of these substances. The review summarizes findings from 60 studies in 10 countries. The participants were young people between the ages of 15 and 25, who were defined as risky consumers of alcohol or cannabis or both; in total, the review included 33,316 participants. Results showed that the interventions significantly reduce alcohol consumption in the short-term compared to no intervention, but the effect size is small, and there is no significant effect in the long-term. There are also shortcomings in the quality of the evidence. Interventions which provide an assessment of alcohol use with feedback may have a larger effect than those which do not, but again, the evidence is weak. The few studies on cannabis did not show significant effects in the reduction of cannabis consumption. There was no evidence of adverse effects. Publisher Abstract Provided