Project VALOR: Veteran Stress and Wellbeing

Cornell University

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Depression; Alcohol Use Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Internet Delivered Brief Intervention (IDBI)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06095817

Smithers2023

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will examine the efficacy of an internet-based brief intervention designed to reduce risky behavior veterans as the move into their second year post-Army. Up to 350 veterans drawn from The Network Study (Dept of Defense; Award number: W81XWH1920001) will be recruited with the intention of drawing a final sample of 300. Study participants will be randomly assigned to either the intervention or the control group, stratified by age and gender.

Full description

The combination of alcohol use and negative emotional states is a particularly toxic combination for suicide risk. The current study examines changes in alcohol/drug use/misuse and depression as veterans transition further into their post-Army environment and offers a personalized internet-based brief intervention intended to prevent/reduce alcohol misuse and depression in this population.

The study's objectives are to empirically quantify the form of changes that occur with respect to alcohol use and depression as veterans move into their second year post-Army; to identify stable individual risk factors (e.g., personality, military experiences) and dynamic risk factors (e.g., changes in stressors and normative contexts over time) that may be associated with differential temporal patterns of suicide-related behavior (i.e., alcohol use/misuse) and cognition (i.e., depression); and lastly, to determine whether a simple, internet-delivered brief intervention shown can reduce risky behavior in the veteran population.

Enrollment: 140 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 62 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Is US Army veteran who participated in The Network Study (Dept of Defense; Award number: W81XWH1920001)
• Seeks/engages in civilian employment
• Lives in US

Exclusion criteria

• Retired with no plans to seek civilian employment
• Living outside of the US
• Separated from the National Guard or Reserves

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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140 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Condition

Experimental group

Description:

Participants assigned to the intervention condition will be invited to engage with an internet-based intervention at the start of the study (12 months following their separation) * Half of those in the intervention condition will have already received two prior IDBIs (as part of the DoD funded study) within the first 6 months of separation. * The other half of those in the intervention condition will have received no prior IDBIs.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Internet Delivered Brief Intervention (IDBI)

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group will not be offered this month-12 internet-based intervention. * Half of those in the control condition will have received two earlier IDBIs (as part of the DoD funded study) within the first 6 months of their separation. * The other half of those in the control condition will have received no prior IDBIs.