Mason M, Ola B, Zaharakis N, Zhang J. (2015). Text messaging interventions for adolescent and young adult substance use: A meta-analysis. Prevention Science. 16(2):181-188. DOI: 10.1007/s11121-014-0498-7
Mobile phone interventions have been suggested to be effective for adults with substance use disorders, but there is limited research to evaluate their effectiveness with adolescents and young adults. This paper is a meta-analysis of text messaging interventions for substance use in adolescents and young adults (12-29 years old). Fourteen articles were included in analyses. Inclusion criteria for the review were: papers written from 2000-2015, randomized controlled studies of a text messaging intervention, target use of at least one substance, participants between 12 and 29 years of age, enough information to calculate effect sizes. Twelve studies had small effect sizes and the other two had a medium or borderline medium effect size. There was a small summary effect size of 0.25, suggesting that current text message interventions have a small effect on substance use. There was also a positive correlation between the number of text messages sent and effect size. Though effect sizes were small, the authors suggest that the effect sizes to be considered in relation to the advantages of text messaging interventions over face-to-face interventions. Because eleven of the studies targeted tobacco use and the remaining three targeted alcohol use, the authors urge research to investigate text messaging interventions targeting adolescents’ and young adults’ use of substances other than tobacco and alcohol.