Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Aug 8, 2024
Date Accepted: Jan 30, 2025
Text Messaging Interventions for Unhealthy Alcohol Use in Emergency Departments: Mixed-Methods Assessment of Implementation Barriers and Facilitators
ABSTRACT
Background:
Many patients with unhealthy alcohol use (UAU) access health care in emergency departments (EDs). Scalable supports, such as text messaging interventions, can improve patient outcomes, but they are rarely offered in clinical settings.
Objective:
The goal of this study was to use a stakeholder-engaged mixed-methods design to assess barriers and facilitators to implementation of text messaging interventions for UAU.
Methods:
This study was conducted in a large health system in the Northeast. We examined electronic health record data on alcohol screening in 17 EDs, surveyed 26 ED chairs on implementation feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness, and interviewed 18 ED staff and 21 patients to understand barriers and facilitators to implementation.
Results:
ED chair surveys and staff interviews revealed generally high acceptability and appropriateness regarding the intervention, but lower feasibility, indicating concerns about integrating the text intervention in the busy ED workflow. Patients were interested in the intervention to address drinking and health-related goals. EHR data revealed high variability in alcohol screening completion, indicating potential issues in identifying patients eligible to offer the intervention.
Conclusions:
Results provide information that can be used to develop implementation strategies that can be tested in future studies.
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.