Effectiveness of an mHealth Intervention to Help Parents Prevent Early-Onset Alcohol Involvement: Findings from a Pilot of a Randomized Waitlist Control Trial

TL;DR

A mobile health app called BIPAS Alcohol was tested to help parents prevent early alcohol use in children, showing promising results in changing parental attitudes and behaviors.

Contribution

This study introduces and evaluates BIPAS Alcohol, an mHealth intervention aimed at reducing early-onset alcohol involvement through parental behavior modification.

Findings

BIPAS Alcohol improved parental beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors related to alcohol prevention.

Parental alcohol use frequency moderated the intervention's effects on alcohol access and sipping allowance.

The intervention showed stronger effects on permissive beliefs and weaker effects on alcohol access for frequent-drinking parents.

Abstract

A quarter of 11-year-old children in the USA have tried alcohol, typically provided by parents. Parents are the primary source of alcohol socialization for preteens, yet many are unaware of their influence and lack tools to discourage early-onset alcohol involvement (EOAI). We piloted BIPAS Alcohol, an mHealth intervention grounded in social cognitive theory, to prevent alcohol socialization. In this two-arm randomized waitlist control trial, 132 parents were randomized to receive BIPAS Alcohol immediately or after a 3-month delay. Self-reported outcomes were assessed at baseline and at 3 months. We analyzed intent-to-treat (ITT) effects using generalized linear models. We also tested moderation of intervention exposure by parental alcohol use frequency. BIPAS Alcohol improved parents’ alcohol prevention beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, including parenting self-efficacy, permissive beliefs, communication with other caregivers, alcohol socialization, and allowing sips. In moderation analyses, parent alcohol use frequency was associated with weaker effects on alcohol access and stronger effects on allowance of sipping. Moderation analyses suggested stronger effects on permissive beliefs and allowance of sips and weaker effects on alcohol access among parents who drank more frequently. BIPAS Alcohol is a promising preventive intervention for delaying EOAI. Its long-term effectiveness should be confirmed using a larger, more diverse sample.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11121-025-01875-y.

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