Comparing the Efficacy of Several Popular Online Interventions to Reduce Hazardous Alcohol Consumption

Comparing the Efficacy of Several Popular Online Interventions to Reduce Hazardous Alcohol Consumption: Randomized Controlled Trial

There are a number of popular, freely available online interventions targeting hazardous alcohol consumption. Unfortunately, most have limited or no published evidence regarding their efficacy. Of particular interest is the intervention, 'Hello Sunday Morning.' The current project proposes to evaluate its' efficacy employing a RCT, using The Check Your Drinking intervention as an active comparator in the trial.

Participants will be recruited through Amazon's MTurk crowdsourcing platform. Potential participants identified as problem drinkers based on an initial survey will be invited to complete another survey in 6 months time. Those who agree to be followed-up will be assigned by chance to be asked versus not asked to access one of the interventions and then recontacted 6 months later to ask about their drinking and their impressions of the online intervention. The primary hypothesis to be tested is that participants receiving access to any of the online interventions will report a greater level of reduction in number of drinks in a typical week between the baseline survey and six-month follow-up as compared to participants in the control condition.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Alcohol Consumption
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Check Your Drinking; Behavioral: Hello Sunday Morning

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 878
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2S1
      • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18 years of age or over
• A score of 8 or over on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT)
• Typically consumes 15 or more drinks per week,
• Willingness to complete a 6-month follow-up survey

Exclusion Criteria: None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No Intervention: Control; A questionnaire that asks individuals what components of an online intervention they might find useful.
Active Comparator: Check Your Drinking (CYD); The CYD is a brief online intervention designed to provide personalized normative feedback aimed at motivating reductions in drinking	Behavioral: Check Your Drinking; A anonymous brief survey designed to provide normative feedback of individual's drinking with the intent of motivating reductions in drinking
Experimental: Hello Sunday Morning; Internet based program designed to assess drinking patterns, and support self-determined goals for abstinence, by providing users with an online platform and community to discuss progress and goals.	Behavioral: Hello Sunday Morning; Brief online intervention that allows Individual's reflect on their drinking reductions progress and goals.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in the variable, number of drinks in a typical week, from baseline measurement to 6-month follow-up	Sum of number of drinks consumed in a typical week	6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: John A Cunningham, PhD, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Cunningham JA, Godinho A, Bertholet N. Outcomes of two randomized controlled trials, employing participants recruited through Mechanical Turk, of Internet interventions targeting unhealthy alcohol use. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2019 Jun 14;19(1):124. doi: 10.1186/s12874-019-0770-4.
• Schell C, Godinho A, Cunningham JA. To thine own self, be true: Examining change in self-reported alcohol measures over time as related to socially desirable responding bias among people with unhealthy alcohol use. Subst Abus. 2021;42(1):87-93. doi: 10.1080/08897077.2019.1697998. Epub 2020 Feb 10.

Helpful Links

• Information about research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 24, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 23, 2017
• Study Completion (Actual): October 23, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 17, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 21, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): February 23, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 25, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 24, 2017
• Last Verified: October 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Drinking Behavior; Alcohol Drinking
• Other Study ID Numbers: 11/13/2016

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No