Mindfulness for Alcohol Abusing Offenders

NCT ID: NCT03883646

Last Updated: 2025-09-26

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 392 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2018-07-01
• Study Completion Date: 2025-04-30

Brief Summary

Over half of state and federal prisoners meet clinical criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence, and after release from prison, over three-quarters of offenders are re-arrested within five years. Thus, there is a critical need for more effective interventions that could help disrupt this insidious cycle of alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, and incarceration. This project will support the development and evaluation of a mindfulness intervention for female prison inmates that will target key neuropsychological vulnerabilities that are associated with relapse and recidivism.

Detailed Description

The pernicious link between substance abuse and criminal behavior imposes major costs to society, totaling billions of dollars in the U.S. annually. There is a critical need for more effective interventions to counteract the high rates of relapse and recidivism in alcohol and substance abusing criminal offenders. Periods of offender incarceration provide a unique opportunity to develop and deploy such interventions. Progress in intervention development could be achieved by targeting specific cognitive and affective vulnerabilities that are common among substance abusing criminal offenders. Preliminary studies suggest that meditative or mindfulness interventions may confer significant psychological and behavioral benefits to inmates. However, the mechanisms and extent of intervention efficacy are unclear, as these previous studies have been beset by a number of methodological limitations. Moreover, to date no study has examined the neurobiological mechanisms that relate to treatment success in this population. NIAAA has recently made a program call to address these issues (PA-15-299). Here we answer this program call and propose to undertake a rigorous and comprehensive longitudinal study of mindfulness treatment of alcohol and substance use disorders among female inmates. This project will randomly assign over 400 female inmates to a mindfulness or relapse prevention training course, and both will be compared against a no treatment control. The mindfulness intervention will be tailored to address two key neuropsychological deficits in alcohol abusing criminal offenders: impulsivity and craving. We will test hypotheses about the neural changes over time with treatment to elucidate mechanisms of change. We will obtain estimates of "real-world" efficacy of the intervention by collecting outcome measures in prison (conduct reports) and following release (alcohol use relapse and antisocial behavior). This project takes advantage of a unique, longstanding partnership between the research team and the states of New Mexico and Wisconsin Correction Departments that allows collection of comprehensive assessment data from inmates during incarceration, including brain imaging data with a mobile MRI scanner, as well as access to post-release outcomes and relapse data. Completion of these aims is a critical step for implementing and evaluating a promising mindfulness intervention for this high-risk population. The proposed research will also begin to elucidate the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of the treatment. These results will thus significantly advance a program of research seeking to translate the growing knowledge of neuropsychological deficits into more targeted and effective treatments for alcohol and substance abuse problems in criminal offenders.

Conditions

Alcohol Abuse; Criminal Behavior

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

Mindfulness

Mindfulness

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Mindfulness

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Mindfulness-based Relapse Prevention. Guided meditation/discussion (Group sessions).

Relapse Prevention

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Relapse Prevention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Relapse Prevention. Cognitive behavioral principles/strategies (Group sessions).

Waitlist Control

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Treatment as Usual

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Mindfulness

Mindfulness-based Relapse Prevention. Guided meditation/discussion (Group sessions).

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Relapse Prevention

Relapse Prevention. Cognitive behavioral principles/strategies (Group sessions).

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• 18-65 years of age
• Alcohol Use Disorder
• Female (biological sex at birth)
• Time to release from incarceration > 3 months
• 5th grade or higher reading level
• Able to speak and understand English

Exclusion Criteria

• Uncorrectable auditory or visual deficits
• Intelligence Quotient score below 70
• History of dementia or other cognitive disability
• Current psychotic disorder (chronic schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and/or active psychotic symptoms)
• Major medical illness or Central Nervous System disease
• MRI incompatibility (e.g., metal in body)

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 65 Years
• Eligible Sex: FEMALE
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

University of Wisconsin, Madison

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

The Mind Research Network

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Kent Kiehl

Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Law, Executive Science Officer

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

The Mind Research Network

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

Countries

United States

Provided Documents

Document Type: Informed Consent Form

View Document

Other Identifiers

18114

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id