Impact of Parental Notification Following a University Student Substance Use Violation

Introduction: Parental notification following a student substance use violation is a common strategy for university administrators, and is commonly assumed to play a role in reducing student substance use and misuse. However, the empirical literature on parental notification is limited to only a handful of studies, each with serious methodological problems. Here we present results from the first randomized controlled trial of parent notification, in which we partnered with a university student conduct office to randomly assign students to either a parent letter condition or a no parent letter condition upon committing a violation. Specifically, we examine student alcohol and marijuana use for possible treatment effects, as well as parent-student relationship characteristics as potential moderators.

Method: University students were randomly assigned by university student conduct office personnel to conditions upon receiving an alcohol or substance use violation over the course of the 2016-17 academic year. Approximately six weeks after the violation, students (n=389) completed surveys assessing parent-student communication, parent-student relationship quality, and alcohol/substance use.

Results: A series of mixed-model ANOVAs revealed several associations that differed as a function of letter group status and parent-student relationship quality. Students whose parents who received a letter, and who viewed their parents as highly controlling, reported higher rates of parent-initiated conversations in response to the violation; highly controlling parents were also viewed by students as more concerned about the violation. However, students with highly controlling parents who received a letter viewed those conversations as less helpful than did other students.

With regard to alcohol and substance use, interactions emerged: students whose parents received a letter and reported high parental control indicated lower rates of 30-day alcohol use and 30-day marijuana use than did other students, but were less likely than other students to perceive a need to cut back on their drinking.

Conclusions: These results suggest that the impact of parental notification is mixed: for students whose parents were perceived as highly controlling and received a parent letter, there appears to be a short-term decrease in drinking and marijuana use, but in combination with a lower perception of need to cut back on drinking. This pattern is consistent with the idea that high-control parenting may yield short-term, reactive behavior changes.