College Students' Intentions to Seek Help for Alcohol Use: A Network-Informed Reasoned Action Approach

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; social networks offer additional potential utility by shaping norms and attitudes that influence these behaviors. 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.

Cross-sectional survey data from 1,447 college students were extracted from a larger, nationally representative student quota sample. Inclusion criteria were between 18 and 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.

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

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.