Alcohol

The Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO is an interactive, online program that provides immediate, personalized feedback about alcohol use and related variables.

Customized

Each subscription is customized to your institution or organization to support your health, wellness, and strategic AOD goals, and to connect your users with local resources, programs and departments.

As a not-for-profit organization within the SDSU Research Foundation, the eCHECKUP TO GO Programs provide cost-effective and affordable alcohol and other drug interventions.

Retrieve up-to-the-minute administrative reports on your participants’ responses, view completion verifications, and download all of your program data from our easy-to-use administrative portal.

Effective programs focused on changing behaviors require interventions beyond education.

Strengthen a culture of safety and well-being at your institution by reducing harm from alcohol use

Program Details

Personalized
With regard to substance use, the personal feedback, used in conjunction with counseling, or as a stand-alone intervention, includes information that has been shown to be particularly motivating to high school and college-aged young adults:

  • Quantity and Frequency of Use
  • Amount Consumed
  • Normative Comparisons
  • Physical Health Information
  • Amount and Percent of Income Spent
  • Negative Consequences Feedback
  • Explanation, Advice, and Local Referral Information

Brief
The Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO is a brief intervention. Participants can complete the questions and receive their personalized feedback in about 5-10 minutes.

Because it is brief and personalized to the respondent’s current behaviors, individuals can complete a “check-up” on multiple occasions to track changes in use and risk behavior.

Confidential
The Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO can be completed completely anonymously. When completed anonymously, your respondents can answer honestly and receive more-accurate feedback knowing that their answers are safe and non-identifiable.

Effective
Numerous published peer reviewed outcome studies conducted across various communities consistently demonstrate that the Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO significantly reduces drinking and negative consequences.

The Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO Program is recognized as a highly-effective, low-cost intervention by NIAAA.

Research studies using the Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO program have demonstrated reductions in:

  • Drinks per week
  • Average BAC
  • Highest drinking episode BAC
  • Alcohol consequences
  • Drinking to intoxication

Flexible
The Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO can provide quick, confidential feedback in multiple settings. It is often implemented both as a population level prevention as well as a targeted individual intervention by the same institution.

Additionally, the program has been customized for different populations including high school students, college students, adults in the general population, and military service members.

Verification

The Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO Program provides two ways to positively verify that a student has completed the program:

Electronic Verification of Completion

The Electronic Verification of Completion (EVC) is a FREE and optional “add-on” to the core eCHECKUP TO GO Program. The EVC provides subscribing institutions a way to positively verify that a student has completed the Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO.

  1. Students are prompted to begin the EVC on the “Resources” page of their Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO feedback (the last page). Students may begin the EVC only after reviewing all pages of their personalized feedback.
  2. EVC ScreenshotStudents provide their personal identifying information (i.e., name, campus identification number, and e-mail address) and select the specific and identified campus official to whom they want to send their verification.
  3. Students must also consent to complete the verification and send the verification via email.
  4. The student’s verification is sent to the selected campus official via email.
  5. The campus official receiving the verification emails can also access our online, real-time administrative site to review, sort, and query their previously sent verifications.
  6. Working with their own IT staff, campuses can use their EVC data to create ways to automatically remove administrative holds and/or design follow-up communications with students.

Note: The EVC program does not transmit students’ responses to the Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO questions nor their confidential cannabis use profile. The EVC only verifies that a student completed the program.

Personal Reflections & Verification of Completion Program

The Personal Reflections & Verification of Completion Program (PRVC) is an optional “add-on” to the core eCHECKUP TO GO Program. The PRVC provides all the functionality of the Electronic Verification of Completion, but also provides students a guided opportunity to thoughtfully reflect on their personal drinking profile.

Given the research showing that the more time a student spends reflecting on his/her personal feedback, the more likely they are to make positive changes in their behavior (Dimeff and McNeely, 2000), and guided by Motivational Interviewing and Social Norms theories and research (Walters and Baer, 2006); the questions we have designed are intended to minimize resistance, highlight internal discrepancies, and maximize thoughtful contemplation of personal choices and motivation to change.

  1. Students are prompted to begin the PRVC on the “Resources” page of their Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO feedback (the last page). Students may begin the PRVC only after reviewing all pages of their personalized feedback.
  2. Students provide their personal identifying information (i.e., name, campus identification number, and e-mail address) and select the specific and identified campus official to whom they want to send their verification.
  3. Students must also consent to complete the PRVC and send the PRVC via email.
  4. Next, the student is presented with questions designed to deepen their thoughtful examination of their personal choices and the social norms surrounding and influencing their use of alcohol. The specific questions the student is required to answer are determined by each individual student’s unique Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO profile.
  5. After the student provides their responses to the selected PRVC questions, the student’s PRVC is sent to the selected campus official via email.
  6. The campus official receiving the PRVC emails can also access our online, real-time administrative site to review, sort, and query their previously sent PRVC responses.
  7. Working with their own IT staff, campuses can use their PRVC data to create ways to automatically remove administrative holds and/or design follow-up communications with students.

Note: The PRVC program does not transmit students’ responses to the Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO questions nor their confidential cannabis use profile. The PRVC only verifies that a student completed the program and allows the campus official to view students’ responses to the selected PRVC questions.