JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Empirically validated psychological treatments for addiction commonly fail to be adopted in community-based practice, a phenomenon known as the “research-to-practice gap.” The availability of fully autonomous digital equivalents of therapist-delivered therapies could reduce barriers and disinsentives to adopting new psychological treatments by eliminating the need for costly and intensive therapist training and supervision.

Objective:

With this in mind, we obtained a program development grant to conduct formative work in the development of a fully autonomous digital version of our previously validated therapist-delivered intervention for alcohol use disorder (AUD) with a comorbid anxiety disorder.

Methods:

We first provide a detailed description of the digital intervention development process (Aim I). Next, we describe a study of the functionality of the newly developed digital intervention in 52 residential AUD treatment patients with a comorbid anxiety disorder (Aim II).

Results:

We provide a detailed description of the challenges we encountered and solutions we employed in developing the digital intervention (Aim I). Users of the newly developed digital intervention rated various aspects of their overall experience (e.g., ease of use, relevance and benefit to their problems) at above 8 where 10 was the strongest endorsement. Behavioral demonstrations and quiz-based measures showed that over 80% of participants gained functional mastery of the key skills and information taught in the program.

Conclusions:

This work provides the foundational knowledge and experience to rigorously test the newly developed digital intervention. Additionally, others may benefit by learning of the challenges we encountered and the solutions we employed in converting an existing therapist-delivered therapy into a fully autonomous digital intervention. Clinical Trial: R34AA025761