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

NCT ID: NCT05837611

Last Updated: 2023-05-06

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: UNKNOWN
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 80 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2022-06-10
• Study Completion Date: 2024-07-01

Brief Summary

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.

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.

Conditions

Alcohol Abuse; Alcohol Intervention; Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring; Contingency Management; Deposit Contract

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

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.

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring

Intervention Type: OTHER

Using a SCRAM-Cam device participants will be monitored for their alcohol use.

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.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Deposit Contract

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

A deposit contract requires individuals to put down money that is earned back contingently upon meeting their goals.

Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring

Intervention Type: OTHER

Using a SCRAM-Cam device participants will be monitored for their alcohol use.

Interventions

Deposit Contract

A deposit contract requires individuals to put down money that is earned back contingently upon meeting their goals.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring

Using a SCRAM-Cam device participants will be monitored for their alcohol use.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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

• Minimum Eligible Age: 21 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University of North Texas, Denton, TX

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Locations

University Of North Texas

Denton, Texas, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Jamie R Pogue

Role: CONTACT

Jamie.pogue@unt.edu

9403698308

Facility Contacts

Jamie R Pogue, BA

Role: primary

Jamie.Pogue@unt.edu

940-369-8308

References

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Reference Type: BACKGROUND

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Reference Type: BACKGROUND

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Reference Type: BACKGROUND

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Other Identifiers

22-22

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id