Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Apr 17, 2023
Date Accepted: Sep 23, 2023
The Hello Sunday Morning Alcohol and Wellbeing Self-assessment: Preliminary Outcomes
ABSTRACT
Background:
Alcohol-related injuries and disease are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Early intervention is essential given the chronic, relapsing nature of alcohol use disorders. There is significant potential for widely accessible online screening tools to help individuals determine where they stand in terms of alcohol use and provide support recommendations. Screening and brief interventions (SBIs) provide individuals with a stigma-free opportunity to learn and think about the potential risks of drinking and prompt help-seeking behaviour by incorporating behaviour change techniques (BCTs). Further, as excessive alcohol use and mental health problems often occur concurrently, SBIs for both conditions simultaneously can potentially address a critical gap in alcohol and mental health treatment.
Objective:
We investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical outcomes of the Alcohol and Wellbeing Self-assessment (A&WS), a web based SBI.
Methods:
The A&WS is freely available on the Hello Sunday Morning website, as part of an uncontrolled, observational prospective study. Feasibility was assessed by the number of respondents who commenced and subsequently completed the A&WS. Acceptability was measured via participant feedback to determine overall satisfaction, perceived helpfulness, and likelihood of recommending the A&WS to others. Clinical outcomes were measured in two ways: (1) Self-reported changes in alcohol consumption (AUDIT score) or psychological distress (K-10 score) over time, (2) Help-seeking - both self-reported, and immediate online help-seeking. Preliminary baseline data collected for the first 9 months (March to December 2022) of the study is reported, including 3-month follow-up outcomes.
Results:
A total of 17,628 participants commenced the A&WS, and of these, 14,419 (81.8%) completed the A&WS. Of those completing the A&WS, 1,323 (9.2%) agreed to participate in the follow-up research. Acceptability was high, with around 80% reporting high satisfaction levels overall, 95.6% found the A&WS easy to use, and would recommend the tool to others. Monthly follow-ups were completed by 378 (1-month), 279 (2-month), and 233 (3-month) participants respectively. Significant reductions in AUDIT-C (P<.001) and K-10 scores (P<.001) were observed over the three-month follow-up period.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that the A&WS is a highly feasible and acceptable digital SBI that may support individuals to make changes to their alcohol consumption and improve their psychological wellbeing. Positive clinical outcomes require replication within the context of a randomised controlled trial. This scalable, cost-effective tool has the potential to reach large numbers of adults who might not otherwise access help whilst complementing the alcohol and mental health treatment ecosystem. Clinical Trial: Not applicable
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.