Men’s Experiences of a Personalised, Appearance-based, Facial-morphing, Safer Drinking Intervention

Risky alcohol consumption behaviours remain commonplace, representing a major threat to health and safety (WHO, 2018, 2023), and are especially evidenced by young university students (NIAAA, 2023). Consequently, new interventions targeting this high-risk group are required. The current study investigated young male university students’ experiences of a personalised, appearance-based, facial morphing, safer drinking intervention. Twenty-five male student participants were recruited, aged 18 to 34 years. Inductive thematic analysis of data gathered whilst participants were immersed in the intervention, and thereby exposed to alcohol-aged images of their own faces, produced four primary themes: alcohol as a threat to appearance and health, motivations to protect appearance, motivational aspects of the intervention, and proposed improvements and applications. The results of the current study suggested that participants expressed intentions towards healthier consumption/maintenance of already non-risky intake, supporting the potential of the facial-morphing appearance-based approach to address risky alcohol consumption, even in high-risk groups.