Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jul 23, 2019
Date Accepted: Jan 27, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Development and Testing of a Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention to Reduce Drinking among Homeless Adults: The Smart-T Alcohol Protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
Adults who are homeless are more likely to have alcohol use disorders (AUDs) compared with domiciled adults. Although AUD treatments are commonly available, many factors (e.g., transportation limitations, inability to schedule appointments) contribute to low treatment completion rates and low success rates of these interventions among homeless adults. Most adults who are homeless own mobile phones, however, no interventions have been developed that use mobile devices to deliver and/or support AUD interventions for this population. Mobile phone-based AUD interventions may reduce barriers that have limited the use and utility of traditional interventions
Objective:
This study will (1) identify variables (e.g., affect, stress, geolocation, cravings) that predict drinking among homeless adults (Phase I), (2) develop a mobile intervention that utilizes an algorithm to identify moments of risk for drinking and deliver treatment messages that are tailored to the individual’s current needs in real time (Phase II), and (3) pilot test the intervention app (Phase III).
Methods:
In Phase I, homeless adults with an AUD (N=80) will complete baseline, equipment, 2-week, and 4-week follow-up visits in person. Participants will be prompted to complete five daily ecological momentary assessments on a study-provided smartphone for 28 days. The smartphone app will collect GPS coordinates every 5 minutes for the entire 28-day study period. Participants will wear a transdermal alcohol sensor that will objectively measure alcohol use. In Phase II, we will use Phase I data to develop an algorithm that identifies moments of heightened risk for drinking and develop treatment messages that address drinking risk factors. Phase III will pilot test the intervention in 40 homeless adults with AUD
Results:
Data collection for Phase I began in February 2019. Phase III data collection is expected to conclude in April 2020.
Conclusions:
This research will highlight intervention targets and develop a novel intervention for understudied and underserved homeless adults with AUD. Clinical Trial: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT03746808.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
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.