Effects of the twelve-step facilitation and motivational interviewing treatments on alcohol consumption among undergraduate university students in the Central Region, Ghana

Abstract

The study sought to ascertain the effects of the twelve-step facilitation and motivational interviewing treatments on alcohol consumption among undergraduate university students in the Central Region of Ghana. Quasi-experimental design was used. The objectives were to ascertain the effects of the twelve-step facilitation and motivational interviewing treatments on alcohol consumption, to examine the influence of gender, age and religion on the alcohol consumption among participants in the experimental groups. To achieve these, four hypotheses were postulated and tested. The population for the study was 9,922 being third year regular students from the three public universities in the region. Simple random sampling was used to select one academic department and one programme in each university. Based on this, 370, being the accessible population in the three selected programmes was administered the questionnaire and 87 met the inclusion criteria. However, 60 participants were selected using simple random sampling technique for the intervention. Alcohol Consumption Inventory was used to collect data. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analyzed using one-way and two-way ANCOVA. The findings showed both the twelve-step and motivational interviewing treatments were effective in reducing alcohol consumption among the participants significantly. Gender had significant influence, however, age, and religious background did not have significant influence on the alcohol consumption of participants in the experimental groups. It was recommended that, University Counsellors should make use of the twelve-step facilitation and the motivational interviewing treatments in counselling students with risky and abusive alcohol consumption behaviour.