Evaluation of an Internet-based Intervention for Hazardous Drinkers

Participants could log on to their account and access the programme whenever they wanted to.

They received automated email reminders inviting them to use follow-up tools, especially the diary in order to register their alcohol intake on the previous week:

• 4 weeks after starting the programme, so that they would take advantage of the monitoring stage in case they had not spontaneously done so.
• 2 weeks later for 6-week follow-up.

The programme includes several steps:

• personalized feedback on alcohol consumption and related risks
• reviewing motivations and fears regarding drinking reduction
• analyse of drinking habits
• reduction goal setting
• follow-up tools (alcohol diary, craving scales, well-being scales)
• a final screen allowing participants to monitor their progress through graphs and automatically adapted comments.

This intervention includes:

• information about hazardous drinking
• an alcohol diary

Category of change in weekly alcohol intake (WAI) is a 3-level categorical variable whose values are:

• clinically significant reduction in WAI, defined as a decrease of 10% or over;
• clinically significant increase in WAI, defined as an increase of 10% or over if WAI at baseline is positive, or any increase if WAI at baseline is 0);
• and no clinically significant change, which includes all other cases.