Deposit Contracts to Increase Accessibility of a Contingency Management Intervention to Reduce Problematic Drinking

May 3, 2023 updated by: University of North Texas, Denton, TX

Piloting Deposit Contracts to Increase Accessibility of a Contingency Management Intervention to Reduce Problematic Drinking

This study will examine the effects of an incentive-based intervention (for reducing alcohol use) that would be sustainable, easily accessible intervention using remote alcohol monitoring and deposit contracts, targeting individuals who would not be reached by more traditional forms of treatment due to barriers such as time constraints, attitudes, and stigma.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Deposit contracts are effective at treating a wide variety of problems: smoking cessation, weight loss, and increasing physical activity. Despite the promise of deposit contracts, few earlier studies targeted problem drinking, since doing so required burdensome frequent monitoring - now overcome by remote alcohol monitoring. Earlier work relied on self- and collateral reports, breath alcohol concentrations during clinic visits, or an indirect non-specific marker of alcohol use. Despite these difficulties, earlier studies of deposit contracts were encouraging, with notable increases in: therapy participation; retention ; and abstinence duration compared to previous reports. Collectively, these studies show the potential of deposit contracts to reduce problem drinking but provide only limited evidence of its effectiveness. Still, these studies, and our recent success using contingency management with remote alcohol monitoring, provide a compelling rationale for examining whether a deposit contract program might provide a feasible, effective, and accessible way of helping people reduce drinking. Though there is limited systematic research on deposit contracts, deposit contract programs for various problems are widely available and have proven quite attractive. For example, a deposit contract weight loss website, has over 887,000 users with $62M in incentives paid. However, it is unclear if deposit contracts would be acceptable (and therefore feasible) to individuals interested in reducing their problem drinking. Therefore, we feel that the proposed deposit contract intervention utilizing remote alcohol monitoring could be a widely available and acceptable intervention for problem drinking for three reasons: (1) because of the effectiveness and convenience of our contingency management intervention using remote alcohol monitoring; (2) because of the widespread success of other deposit contract programs like DietBetã; and (3) because the potentially increased attractiveness and effectiveness of an intervention that can return an amount greater than the deposit. The adoption of a deposit contract intervention plus remote alcohol monitoring will only be accelerated by the "FitBit"-style alcohol monitoring devices being developed by many companies (we are currently independently evaluating one such device). However, making deposit contracts widely available will need evidence of their effectiveness, which requires large randomized controlled trials. The purpose of this R21 application is to develop this evidence by demonstrating that deposit contracts with remote alcohol monitoring are feasible and provide evidence of effectiveness needed to design and justify future studies.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

80

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Texas
      • Denton, Texas, United States, 76210
        • Recruiting
        • University of North Texas
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • at least 21 years of age
  • report > 8 heavy drinking episodes during the last 28 days
  • want to reduce their alcohol use
  • are willing to wear a transdermal alcohol monitor
  • own a smartphone
  • are willing and able to deposit $200

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Monitoring Group Only
Individuals in the Monitoring only group will be required to put down a 200$ deposit but will earn it back non-contingently by attending the weekly study meetings. They will be monitored using the Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring device, but will not be required to meet any Alcohol reduction goals to earn their deposit back.
Other: Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring
Using a SCRAM-Cam device participants will be monitored for their alcohol use.
Experimental: Deposit Contract Group
Individuals in the Deposit COntract group will be required to put down a 200$ deposit but will earn it back, as well as a bonus, contingently for meeting alcohol reduction requirements. For this study, this is counted as having a Transdermal Alcohol COntent below equal to .02 g/dl. They will be monitored using the Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring device.
Other: Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring
Using a SCRAM-Cam device participants will be monitored for their alcohol use.
Behavioral: Deposit Contract
A deposit contract requires individuals to put down money that is earned back contingently upon meeting their goals.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Transdermal Alcohol Content
Time Frame: 4 weeks continuously
Measurement produced while wearing Transdermal Alcohol Monitor
4 weeks continuously

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of North Texas, Denton, TX

Collaborators

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

June 10, 2022

Primary Completion (Anticipated)

May 31, 2024

Study Completion (Anticipated)

July 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 19, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 19, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

May 1, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

May 5, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 3, 2023

Last Verified

May 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 22-22

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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