Advancing Scalable Alcohol Brief Interventions in the ED: A Trial of Conversational AI With Digital Reinforcements (MICA-ED)

June 16, 2026 updated by: Brian Suffoletto, Stanford University

A Randomized Trial of an AI Intervention to Help Individuals With Risky Alcohol Use Among Emergency Department Patients

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a novel digital strategy combining a generative AI counseling agent (MICA) and weekly SMS boosters works to reduce risky drinking among Emergency Department patients.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

750

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 Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Palo Alto, California, United States, 94304
        • Stanford University Medical Center

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:

  1. For men: 1+ days with 5 or more drinks OR any week with 14+ drinks/week in the past 3 months
  2. For women: 1+ days with 4 or more drinks OR any week with 7+ drinks/week in the past 3 months
  3. Owns a mobile phone
  4. Reads English language

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. For women: current or planned pregnancy in next 12 months
  2. Prisoner or active military status

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: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: MICA
MICA is a generative AI-powered counseling agent that delivers brief Motivational Interviewing (MI)-consistent sessions, following the validated MI process (engagement, focusing, evoking, planning, and closing). It uses personalized prompts to promote autonomy and evoke change talk, ending with a session summary and satisfaction check. Participants will complete a MICA session (~5-10 min) in the ED and at 3 months.
Behavioral: MICA
MICA is an AI chatbot that uses a secure API with ChatGPT and prompted to follow MI principles to support individuals in exploring and resolving ambivalence about their alcohol use. MICA follows a predefined conversational framework and steps: introduction, engagement, focusing, evoking, planning, and closing-adapted from Miller & Rollnick's Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (3rd ed.).
Experimental: MICA+SMS
This condition includes the MICA ED session, a 3-month booster, and 12 weeks of weekly SMS messages supporting self-monitoring, goal-setting, and adaptive strategies. Messages are tailored based on reported alcohol use and goal commitment, offering encouragement, feedback, and harm-reduction messaging.
Behavioral: MICA
MICA is an AI chatbot that uses a secure API with ChatGPT and prompted to follow MI principles to support individuals in exploring and resolving ambivalence about their alcohol use. MICA follows a predefined conversational framework and steps: introduction, engagement, focusing, evoking, planning, and closing-adapted from Miller & Rollnick's Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (3rd ed.).
Behavioral: TRAC
Weekly SMS check-ins designed to support goal-setting, self-monitoring, and adaptive self-regulation strategies. Beginning the Sunday after enrollment, participants will engage with an automated SMS program once weekly for 12 weeks. Prompts include reporting on the past week's alcohol use and whether they are willing to commit to a drinking limit goal for the upcoming week. Responses trigger tailored feedback.
No Intervention: Standard care
Standard ED care and as-needed referral to alcohol resources

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Mean weekly alcohol consumption
Time Frame: Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups
Participants report (1) the average number of days per week they consumed alcohol and (2) the typical number of standard drinks consumed on a drinking day. Estimated weekly alcohol consumption will be calculated as: Mean weekly drinks = (average drinking days per week) × (typical drinks per drinking day)
Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of heavy drinking days
Time Frame: Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups
Asking participants: "Over the past 30 days, how many days did you have 4+ standard drinks (women) / 5+ standard drinks (men)?"
Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups
Number of drinks per drinking day
Time Frame: Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups
Asking participants, "Over the past 30 days, on a typical drinking day, how many drinks did you have?"
Baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Stanford University

Collaborators

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Brian Suffoletto, MS MS, Stanford University

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 (Estimated)

August 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

August 1, 2030

Study Completion (Estimated)

February 1, 2031

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 16, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 16, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

June 22, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 22, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 16, 2026

Last Verified

June 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 86953

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

All survey data from baseline through 12-month followups will be uploaded to the data repository (the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Data Archive (NIAAADA). All counseling sessions and SMS data will be de-identified and kept in a separate repository.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Data will be available within 1 year of study completion and available indefinitely.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Individuals with appropriate ethical approval and access to the NIAAADA or a DUA with the PI.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ANALYTIC_CODE
  • CSR

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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