Using Commitment to Intervention Goals as a Predictor of Intervention Success

Background: Interventions are inherently goal-directed (e.g., reduce drinking). Intervention effectiveness results from how participants are motivated to enact these goals. One understudied concept is a participant’s commitment to intervention goals. In theory, commitment moderates the relationship between goal difficulty and goal success. The goal of this research is to examine the efficacy of commitment as an intervention assessment measure.

Methods: Goal and commitment assessments were added to the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) intervention at a large, southeastern university (N=150 students). This prospective study includes three data collection time points (baseline, immediate post, and six weeks post-intervention) where participants complete surveys assessing goals (e.g., reduce drinking), assessment of goal difficulty, commitment to the goal, and outcome measures of goal success (e.g., alcohol consumption). Multivariate multiple regression was used to predict reduction in alcohol consumption.

Results: While data collection is ongoing through summer 2014, expected results include that commitment will moderate the relationship between goal difficulty and program success so that if an individual is highly committed to BASICS and considers the goal moderately difficult, that individual will be most likely to succeed in reducing his or her drinking. In short, goal difficulty and commitment baseline scores will be used to predict outcome success at immediate post and six weeks post-intervention.

Conclusions: Commitment to program goals is an indicator of a participant’s motivation to enact healthy behavior changes. Future public health education programs and interventions should consider measuring commitment as a predictor of intervention effectiveness.