title: Text messaging interventions for adolescent and young adult substance use: a meta-analysis.
abstract: Tobacco and alcohol use continues to be associated with negative health outcomes among adolescents and young adults. New technologies such as text messaging can increase access to substance use interventions and have now been established as an evidence-based, recommended approach towards substance use prevention. This review presents results from a meta-analysis examining the effectiveness of text message interventions for tobacco and alcohol cessation within adolescent and young adult populations. Results from 14 studies with effect sizes are ranging from -0.25 to 0.54. Combining the effect sizes across studies yielded a summary effect size of 0.25, indicating that in general, text interventions have a positive effect on reducing substance use behaviors. Results are discussed in the context of prevention opportunities and recommendations for future text messaging intervention research.
authors.affiliation: Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA, mjmason@vcu.edu.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mason
authors.forename: Bolanle
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ola
authors.forename: Nikola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zaharakis
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D060145:Text Messaging; D055815:Young Adult