Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Feb 22, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 25, 2019 - Mar 1, 2019
Date Accepted: Jul 7, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
A smartphone application featuring cue exposure therapy as aftercare for alcohol use disorders: a randomized controlled trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Cue exposure therapy (CET) is a psychological approach developed to prepare individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) for confronting alcohol and associated stimuli in real life. CET has shown promise when treating AUD in group sessions, but it is unknown whether progressing from group sessions to using a smartphone application is an effective delivery pathway.
Objective:
The objectives of this study were: 1) to investigate whether CET as aftercare increases the effectiveness of primary treatment with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), and 2) to investigate whether CET delivered by means of a smartphone application is similarly effective compared to CET group sessions.
Methods:
The objectives of this study were: 1) to investigate whether CET as aftercare increases the effectiveness of primary treatment with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), and 2) to investigate whether CET delivered by means of a smartphone application is similarly effective compared to CET group sessions.
Results:
A total of 153 individuals (93%) completed both the post-treatment and 6-month follow-up assessment. No differences in the trajectories were found between the experimental groups (CET GA and SAA) compared to AAU on drinking- and craving outcomes over time. Both the CET GA group (Est.= 5.99, SE 2.59, z=2.31, p= 0.021) and the CET SAA group (Est.=4.90, SE= 2.26, z=2.31, p= 0.021) showed increased use of the USCS compared to AAU at post-treatment, but the effect attenuated at the 6-month follow-up. Finally, no differences were detected between the experimental groups on any outcomes.
Conclusions:
Neither CET with USCS delivered via group session, nor a smartphone application as aftercare, increased the effectiveness of primary treatment in the present study. This is the first study to show that CET with USCS may not be an effective psychological approach. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02298751
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.