title: Stand-Alone Personalized Normative Feedback for College Student Drinkers: A Meta-Analytic Review, 2004 to 2014.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Norms clarification has been identified as an effective component of college student drinking interventions, prompting research on norms clarification as a single-component intervention known as Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF). Previous reviews have examined PNF in combination with other components but not as a stand-alone intervention.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the degree to which computer-delivered stand-alone personalized normative feedback interventions reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms among college students and to compare gender-neutral and gender-specific PNF.
  
  
  METHODS
  Electronic databases were searched systematically through November 2014. Reference lists were reviewed manually and forward and backward searches were conducted.
  
  
  METHODS
  Outcome studies that compared computer-delivered, stand-alone PNF intervention with an assessment only, attention-matched, or active treatment control and reported alcohol use and harms among college students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Between-group effect sizes were calculated as the standardized mean difference in change scores between treatment and control groups divided by pooled standard deviation. Within-group effect sizes were calculated as the raw mean difference between baseline and follow-up divided by pooled within-groups standard deviation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eight studies (13 interventions) with a total of 2,050 participants were included. Compared to control participants, students who received gender-neutral (dbetween = 0.291, 95% CI [0.159, 0.423]) and gender-specific PNF (dbetween = 0.284, 95% CI [0.117, 0.451]) reported greater reductions in drinking from baseline to follow-up. Students who received gender-neutral PNF reported 3.027 (95% CI [2.171, 3.882]) fewer drinks per week at first follow-up and gender-specific PNF reported 3.089 (95% CI [0.992, 5.186]) fewer drinks. Intervention effects were small for harms (dbetween = 0.157, 95% CI [0.037, 0.278]).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Computer-delivered PNF is an effective stand-alone approach for reducing college student drinking and has a small impact on alcohol-related harms. Effects are small but clinically relevant when considered from a public health perspective. Additional research is needed to examine computer-delivered, stand-alone PNF as a population-level prevention program.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Keri B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Dotson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Dunn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Clint A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Bowers
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000517:prevention & control; D000067292:Alcohol Drinking in College / Q000523:psychology*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet