A Brief Intervention for Head Coaches: Using Motivational Interviewing for Athletes Who Use Alcohol

Abstract

There have been a host of studies performed documenting that college students engage in alcohol consumption to a degree that is dangerous to their health and well-being (Brenner, Metz, & Brenner, 2009; Harris et al., 2010; Leichleiter et al., 1998; Martens, O'Connor-Dams, & Paiement-Duffy, 2006). Many other studies indicate that college athletes indulge in a higher level of alcohol consumption than their non-athletic peers (NCAA, 2006; Williams, Jr. et al., 2008). There is a continuing culture of excessive consumption of alcohol by college athletes. When reading the headlines about a collegiate athlete who dies because of misusing alcohol, one might ask how the issue continues to be such a problem, and what can be done about it. As a result of data from a study (Nolt et al., 2013) highlighting head coaches' confidence and self-efficacy regarding the issue of alcohol consumption by athletes, an interventional study was developed to address what appears to be a lack of confidence and self-efficacy on the part of collegiate head coaches to address and intervene with athletes who misuse alcohol. Presented in this dissertation are data, which quantified a lack of confidence and self-efficacy of collegiate head coaches to address the issue of athletes who consume alcohol to the detriment of their health and well-being, as well as data from the resulting training which is the subject of this current study. Results affirm that an interventional training which includes alcohol use education combined with motivational interviewing technique successfully increases head coach confidence and ability to conduct a brief intervention with an athlete who drinks.