Alcohol & Mobile Phone Study to Reduce High-risk Alcohol Use and Consequences (AMPS)

University of Washington

Status: Completed

Conditions: Alcohol; Use, Problem

Treatments: Behavioral: Experimental: Mobile Alcohol Expectancy Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04213846

2R01AA016979-05A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

STUDY00002769

Details and patient eligibility

About

The proposed study will develop a smartphone/mobile app intervention that incorporates ecological momentary assessment (i.e., two brief surveys per day) and daily intervention messaging (2 messages per day) for three weeks to target high-risk alcohol use among young adult college students. The intervention mainly focuses on alcohol expectancies, alcohol use, and consequences and the daily associations between these and includes personalized intervention messages based on participants' own event-level expectations and experiences. Other psycho-educational alcohol-related content is also provided over the course of three week intervention. This mobile app intervention will be used in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing young adult college students who receive the intervention with those who only receive assessments via the mobile app.

Full description

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a smartphone app that can both collect daily data and deliver a personalized intervention using participants' own event-level, real-world experiences to challenge proximal alcohol expectancies and alter the associations between alcohol expectancies and drinking and consequences. The mobile app intervention will be used in a randomized controlled trial comparing young adult college students who receive the intervention with those who only receive assessments via the mobile app. Assessments include an eligibility survey, baseline assessment, and follow-up assessments occurring 1-, 6-, and 12-months post-intervention.

The goal of the intervention is to target college students' alcohol expectancies (what they believe or expect alcohol's effects to be) and the associations between alcohol expectancies and alcohol use and related consequences. Intervention content will utilize twice daily messages, one in the morning (AM Messages) and one in the late afternoon or early evening (PM Messages). Most PM Messages draw on information collected in the daily assessments (Personalized Messages). Intervention Messages in general will include feedback based on selected assessment items, weekly summaries generated from the daily assessments, general psycho-educational messages and videos about alcohol, and a toolbox with content that supplements information provided in the daily intervention messages.

Enrollment: 408 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 25 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Typically drinking 2+ days/week, having at least 1 occasion of heavy episodic drinking (4+ women/5+ men) in last 2 weeks, having 4 or more negative consequences in the last month, owning a smartphone with a data package, agreeing to install the app on their phone and receive notifications.
• Student at a 2- or 4- year college where recruitment is located

Exclusion criteria

• None

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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408 participants in 2 patient groups

Mobile Alcohol Expectancy Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants randomized to the intervention condition will receive twice daily intervention messages for three weeks and have access to other psycho-educational alcohol information.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Experimental: Mobile Alcohol Expectancy Intervention

Assessment-only Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants randomized to the control group will not receive any intervention. They will be an assessment-only control group.