Personalized Feedback Intervention to Reduce Risky Cannabis Use.

Personalized Feedback Intervention to Reduce Risky Cannabis Use: Randomized Controlled Trial

The purpose of this project is to determine whether participants who receive a personalized feedback report and educational materials about risky cannabis use will be less likely to report risky cannabis use at follow-up compared to participants who only received educational materials.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cannabis Use
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Personalized Feedback; Behavioral: Education

Detailed Description

This project aims to reduce risky cannabis use among those with less severe cannabis use, most of whom will never seek formal treatment. All of the participants will receive educational material regarding risky cannabis use and its prevention. Half of the participants will also be assigned by chance to receive a personalized feedback report.

The investigators hypothesize that:

1. Participants who receive the full personalized feedback intervention will be less likely to report risky cannabis use at 3- and 6-month follow-ups compared to participants who receive educational materials only (Primary Hypothesis).
2. Participants who receive the full personalized feedback intervention will report greater reductions in their perceptions of how much others use cannabis at a 3-month follow-up compared to participants who receive educational materials only.
3. Reductions in perceptions of how much others use cannabis at 3-month follow-up will be positively associated with reduction in the participant's risky cannabis use at 6-month follow-up.

A 2-arm parallel group randomized controlled trial will be conducted to test these hypotheses with follow-ups occurring at 3 and 6 months after randomization. Online media advertisements will be used to recruit people currently using cannabis. The advertisements will be placed across Canada using locations found successful in previous trials to rapidly recruit participants (e.g. Google AdWords).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 747
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

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

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 99 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Score of 4 or more on the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test, Cannabis subscale (ASSIST)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Being under 18 years of age

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Personalized Feedback and Education; This arm is provided personalized feedback concerning their cannabis use in addition to educational materials about risky cannabis use.	Behavioral: Personalized Feedback; A report comparing the participant's cannabis use to peer usage, and summarizing problems experienced and risk associated with future use.; Behavioral: Education; Canada's Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines prepared by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health which outlines methods to help reduce health risks associated with cannabis use.
Active Comparator: Education; This arm is provided educational materials about risky cannabis use.	Behavioral: Education; Canada's Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines prepared by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health which outlines methods to help reduce health risks associated with cannabis use.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Cannabis Use in the last 30 days	Change in the number of days participant used cannabis in the past 30-days from baseline	3 and 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST, cannabis subscale)	Change in cannabis subscale scores from baseline. Scores are calculated as a sum of six items and totals can range from 0 to 39 with higher scores indicating greater risk.	Baseline, 3 and 6 months
Perceptions of Cannabis Use by Peers in the past 3 months	Change in participant's perceptions of how much their peers (same age and gender) use cannabis. Measured as a percentage of peers that do not use cannabis (%) and a 5-points Likert scale, 0 "Never" to 5 "Daily or Almost daily" of frequency of peer use	Baseline, 3 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Publications and helpful links

Helpful Links

• Description 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): September 3, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 15, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): October 15, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 16, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 16, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): August 19, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 27, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 26, 2020
• Last Verified: October 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Marijuana Abuse
• Other Study ID Numbers: 143/2018

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