Understanding College Students' Help-Seeking Intentions for Alcohol Use: A Theoretical and Network-Based Approach.

Unlabelled: Despite alcohol use remaining a prevalent issue on college campuses, the number of students who seek help remains low. The Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) provides a theoretical framework for understanding the psychosocial drivers of help-seeking intentions, while social networks offer additional potential utility by shaping norms and attitudes that influence these behaviors.

Objective: This study investigated the association between college students' social network characteristics, the RAA, and intentions to seek help for alcohol use if they thought or knew they had a problem.

Methods: Cross-sectional survey data from 1,447 college students were extracted from a larger, nationally representative college student quota sample. Inclusion criteria were between 18 to 24 years of age, enrolled full time in a college or university, reported past-year alcohol consumption, and passed data quality checks. Participants reported demographics, RAA constructs, and egocentric network data. Network composition variables were calculated via E-Net. Descriptive statistics and hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted to examine intentions to seek help.

Results: A regression model consisting of RAA constructs was statistically significant at the < .001 level, accounting for nearly 40% of the variance in help-seeking intentions. The addition of network composition variables increased the explained variance by an additional 2.8%, which was statistically significant at the < .001 level.

Conclusions: Integrating RAA constructs with social network characteristics can help identify specific individual beliefs and social influences that can be targeted to strengthen help-seeking intentions and behaviors among college students who engage in high-risk drinking.