Previously submitted to: Journal of Participatory Medicine (no longer under consideration since Dec 09, 2019)
Date Submitted: Oct 4, 2019
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Digital brief interventions for addictive behaviors and mood disorders: analysis of 213,040 completed interventions assessing cannabis use, alcohol consumption, gambling, tobacco use, depression and anxiety
ABSTRACT
Background:
Internet-based screening tools offering tailored outputs are rapidly expanding in use and sophistication. The emerging literature on digital health screening tools could benefit from data outlining the types of users who have previously accessed interventions and screening tools.
Objective:
The main objective of this manuscript is to highlight the various profiles of users who seek assistance from digital health screening tools. A second objective is to highlight the opportunity to deliver brief interventions that contain tailored outputs destined to promote positive health behavior change and motivate users to seek assistance from their health care professional.
Methods:
Data were extracted and analyzed from CheckYourCannabis.net (CYC), CheckYourDrinkingU.net (CYD-U), CheckYourGambling.net (CYG), CheckYourSmoking (CYS), and the Web-Based Depression & Anxiety Test (WB-DAT). The study included analysis of data from users who did not self-identify as healthcare professionals from November 19, 2007 to April 17, 2019 (4,168 days).
Results:
Over the study period 212,900 interventions were completed. 49% (n=160,231) identified as female, and the average reported age was 31. The average ASSIST score for CYC users was 16.5 (range 0-27+), the average AUDIT score for CYD-U users was 8.4 (range 0-40), the average PGSI score for problem gamblers was 12.0 (0-8+), and the average Fagerström score for CYS users was 4.6 (range 0-8). 37% (n=220) of CYC users indicated that they smoked cannabis daily, and 80% (n=7,562) of CYD-U users reported drinking more than five drinks on one occasion within the past few months. The most frequent type of 13 gambling behaviors reported by CYG users was instant win tickets or daily lottery tickets (76%, n=1800), and lottery tickets, raffles or fund-raising tickets (76%, n=1790). The most frequent diagnosis for WB-DAT users was Generalized Anxiety Disorder (46%, n=90,092). Other frequencies of behaviors reported by users are presented and discussed.
Conclusions:
Many individuals with addictive behaviors and mood and anxiety disorders are drawn to digital health interventions. There were gender-specific differences in the utilization of the mood and anxiety disorders tool compared to the substance abuse brief interventions. As the interventions in this study were not advertised, and the populations accessing them were self-seeking, there may be an opportunity to reach many more users with well-promoted programs.
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.