The Development of a Personalized, Real-time Intervention (PFIcope+EMI)

The Development of a Personalized, Real-time Intervention for Substance-using Emerging Adults Leaving Psychiatric Partial Hospitalization

The investigators propose to enhance our existing coping motive-specific normative feedback intervention (PFIcope intervention) by capitalizing on EMA/EMI technology to pair real-time affective monitoring with tailored real-time relapse prevention texts for individuals with anxiety and depression who drink to cope. The goals of the PFIcope+EMI study are to help individuals to identify motives for drinking and to utilize alternate coping strategies for negative affect in place of alcohol.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Drinking, Alcohol
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: PFIcope+EMI

Detailed Description

Emerging adulthood (ages 18-25) represents and common and problematic time for alcohol use and mental health issues, particularly anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression increase the likelihood of developing risky patterns of alcohol use. Indeed, individuals who drink alcohol to cope with negative affect, such as anxiety and depression, report more alcohol use and more severe use-related consequences. As such, it is important to address alcohol use, particularly among a psychiatric population of emerging adults. Despite their co-occurrence, treatment as usual for anxiety and depression typically does not address alcohol use, and alcohol interventions for emerging adults largely ignore anxiety and depression. Emerging research suggests interventions that specifically focus on drinking to cope with negative affect are promising in reducing problematic outcomes. For example, the investigators previously developed a brief, personalized feedback intervention that specifically targeted use of alcohol to cope with negative affect among a normative sample of emerging adults (Personalized Feedback Intervention for Coping - PFIcope), which resulted in decreased drinking to cope. In order to adapt PFIcope for a psychiatric population and augment treatment effects, the investigators propose adding ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and intervention (EMI) in order to identify when emerging adults are at most risk for problematic alcohol use and intervene when needed. EMA can assess symptoms in real time and identify high-risk situations for problematic use (i.e., when experiencing negative affect and reports intention to use), which can trigger an in-the-moment EMI during that high-risk situation (i.e., individually-chosen relapse prevention coping skills messages).

The investigators propose to develop a 6-week PFIcope+EMI intervention for 20 emerging adults in a psychiatric partial hospitalization program who report drinking alcohol to cope with negative affect. This will include: 1) an in-person personalized feedback session to present normative information and feedback on problems associated with drinking to cope, to discuss the individual's use of alcohol to cope, and to generate relapse prevention coping skills messages to be used in the EMI text intervention; 2) EMA to monitor affect and intention to drink after discharge; 3) tailored text messages (EMI) based on EMA responses (i.e., individualized coping skills messages when individuals report negative affect and intention to drink); and 4) additional EMA to monitor coping skills usage, alcohol use, and drinking to cope. The PFIcope+EMI intervention, including its associated real-time assessment and messaging systems, is low-cost, easy to program, and can deliver an intervention when individuals are at most risk for engaging in problematic alcohol use.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 20
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Rhode Island
    • Providence, Rhode Island, United States, 02906
      • Butler Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 25 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

(a) between 18 and 25 years of age, (b) reported alcohol use at least 3x weekly over past month, (c) self-reported use of coping motive (mean of 2+ on coping subscale of MDMQ-R), (d) current anxiety and/or depression symptomatology (as assessed CES-D score of 16+ and GAD-7 scores 10+), (e) has access to a smartphone capable of receiving EMA and text, and access to email.

Exclusion Criteria:

(a) current DSM-5 diagnosis of moderate/severe other substance use disorder (i.e., other than alcohol), (b) a history of psychotic disorder or current psychotic symptoms, (c) current suicidal/homicidal ideation.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: PFIcope+EMI; This will include: 1) an in-person personalized feedback session to present normative information and feedback on problems associated with drinking to cope, to discuss the individual's use of alcohol to cope, and to generate relapse prevention coping skills messages to be used in the EMI text intervention; 2) EMA to monitor affect and intention to drink after discharge; 3) tailored text messages (EMI) based on EMA responses (i.e., individualized coping skills messages when individuals report negative affect and intention to drink); and 4) additional EMA to monitor coping skills usage, alcohol use, and drinking to cope.

Behavioral: PFIcope+EMI; The intervention will be comprised of (1) an initial orientation session where the intervention is introduced, receipt of personalized normative information, motives feedback, and the development of an individual's personalized relapse prevention coping skills messages to be utilized through the course of the intervention; (2) EMA for monitoring of affect, drinking intention, alcohol use, and coping skills use; (3) EMI-tailored text messages sent based on EMA responses: individualized, self-chosen relapse prevention coping skills messages when participants report negative affect and intent to drink.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised (DMQ-R) Coping Motive	Drinking to cope with negative affect, 5 items on scale of 1-5 with higher values meaning more use	6 weeks
Percentage of Days of Alcohol Use in the Last Month	Alcohol use, yes/no for each day of past 30	6 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Butler Hospital
• Collaborators: National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 24, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 1, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): May 1, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 25, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 7, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): May 8, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 16, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 24, 2022
• Last Verified: October 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Drinking Behavior; Alcohol Drinking
• Other Study ID Numbers: 1803-002; U54GM115677 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

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