A Text Message Behavioral Intervention to Reduce Alcohol Consumption in Young Adults (TRAC)

University of Pittsburgh

Status: Completed

Conditions: Alcohol Consumption; Alcohol Intoxication

Treatments: Behavioral: SMS Assessments; Behavioral: SMS Assessments & Feedback

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01688245

PRO12080344

Details and patient eligibility

About

Investigators aim to test the effectiveness of a text-message-based behaivoral intervention in reducing binge drinking among young adults.

Full description

Alcohol consumption, especially in the form of heavy episodic drinking (bingeing), is common among young adults. Despite high rates of illness and injury associated with heavy episodic drinking, many young adults are not aware of the risks, few seek help for their drinking and many at-risk are not exposed to prevention-based intervention. Opportunistic screening in hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) tied to behavioral interventions has the potential to prevent future alcohol-related harm among young adults, but efficacy across outcomes has been mixed and large-scale implementation of prevention programs is low. Given the rapidly growing use of cell phone text-messaging (SMS) as a primary form of communication among young adults, SMS could be used to deliver health prevention interventions. We will recruit young adults identified in the ED with hazardous drinking behavior in a 3-arm randomized controlled trial to test the hypothesis that exposure to a 12-week SMS program will result in immediate (3-month) and lasting (6-, and 9-month) decreases in alcohol consumption.

Enrollment: 765 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 25 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• AUDIT-C score 3 or more for women and 4 or more for men

Exclusion criteria

• Current treatment for psychiatric disease
• Any prior treatment for drug or alcohol use disorder

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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765 participants in 3 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

No SMS dialog

SMS Assessments

Active Comparator group

Description:

Weekly post-weekend drinking outcome assessments

Treatment:

Behavioral: SMS Assessments

SMS Assessments & Feedback

Experimental group

Description:

Weekly pre-weekend drinking intention \& post-weekend drinking outcome assessments with personalized feedback and harm-reduction support

Treatment:

Behavioral: SMS Assessments & Feedback