UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

DIAMOND (DIgital Alcohol Management ON Demand): a feasibility RCT and embedded process evaluation of a digital health intervention to reduce hazardous and harmful alcohol use recruiting in hospital emergency departments and online

Hamilton, FL; Hornby, J; Sheringham, J; Linke, S; Ashton, C; Moore, K; Stevenson, F; (2018) DIAMOND (DIgital Alcohol Management ON Demand): a feasibility RCT and embedded process evaluation of a digital health intervention to reduce hazardous and harmful alcohol use recruiting in hospital emergency departments and online. Pilot and Feasibility Studies , 4 , Article 114. 10.1186/s40814-018-0303-7. Green open access

[thumbnail of DIAMOND ED paper 2018.pdf]
Preview
Text
DIAMOND ED paper 2018.pdf - Published Version

Download (948kB) | Preview

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The harmful use of alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions and leads to over 3 million deaths every year worldwide. Relatively few problem alcohol users access treatment due to stigma and lack of services. Alcohol-specific digital health interventions (DHI) may help them, but trial data comparing DHI with face-to-face treatment are lacking. METHODS: We conducted a feasibility RCT of an alcohol DHI, testing recruitment, online data-collection and randomisation processes, with an embedded process evaluation. Recruitment ran from October 2015 for 12 months. Participants were adults, drinking at hazardous and harmful levels, recruited from hospital emergency departments (ED) in London or recruited online. Participants were randomised to HeLP-Alcohol, a six module DHI with weekly reminder prompts (phone, email or text message), or to face-to-face treatment as usual (TAU). Participants were invited to take part in qualitative interviews after the trial. RESULTS: The trial website was accessed 1074 times: 420 people completed online eligibility questionnaires; 350 did not meet eligibility criteria, 51 declined to participate, and 19 were recruited and randomised. Follow-up data were collected from three participants (retention 3/19), and four agreed to be interviewed for the process evaluation. The main themes of the interviews were:Participants were not at equipoise. They wanted to try the website and were disappointed to be randomised to face-to-face, so they were less engaged and dropped out.Other reasons for drop out included not accepting that they had a drink problem; problem drinking interfering with their ability to take part in a trial or forgetting appointments; having a busy life and being randomised to TAU made it difficult to attend appointments. CONCLUSIONS: This feasibility RCT aimed to test recruitment, randomisation, retention, and data collection methods, but recruited only 19 participants. This illustrates the importance of undertaking feasibility studies prior to fully powered RCTs. From the qualitative interviews we found that potential recruits were not at equipoise for recruitment. An alternative methodology, for example a preference RCT recruiting from multiple locations, needs to be explored in future trials. TRIAL REGISTRATION: International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number: ISRCTN31789096.

Type: Article
Title: DIAMOND (DIgital Alcohol Management ON Demand): a feasibility RCT and embedded process evaluation of a digital health intervention to reduce hazardous and harmful alcohol use recruiting in hospital emergency departments and online
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s40814-018-0303-7
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40814-018-0303-7
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine > Department of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Applied Health Research
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Primary Care and Population Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10051596
Downloads since deposit
80Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item