Deposit Contracts to Increase Accessibility of a Contingency Management Intervention to Reduce Problematic Drinking

Alcohol Abuse Clinical Trial

Official title:

Piloting Deposit Contracts to Increase Accessibility of a Contingency Management Intervention to Reduce Problematic Drinking

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05837611
• Other study ID #: 22-22
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 10, 2022
• Est. completion date: July 1, 2024

Study information

• Verified date: May 2023
• Source: University of North Texas, Denton, TX
• Contact: Jamie R Pogue
• Phone: 9403698308
• Email: Jamie.pogue[@]unt.edu
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

This study will examine the effects of an incentive-based intervention (for reducing alcohol use) that would be sustainable, easily accessible intervention using remote alcohol monitoring and deposit contracts, targeting individuals who would not be reached by more traditional forms of treatment due to barriers such as time constraints, attitudes, and stigma.

Description:

Deposit contracts are effective at treating a wide variety of problems: smoking cessation, weight loss, and increasing physical activity. Despite the promise of deposit contracts, few earlier studies targeted problem drinking, since doing so required burdensome frequent monitoring - now overcome by remote alcohol monitoring. Earlier work relied on self- and collateral reports, breath alcohol concentrations during clinic visits, or an indirect non-specific marker of alcohol use. Despite these difficulties, earlier studies of deposit contracts were encouraging, with notable increases in: therapy participation; retention ; and abstinence duration compared to previous reports. Collectively, these studies show the potential of deposit contracts to reduce problem drinking but provide only limited evidence of its effectiveness. Still, these studies, and our recent success using contingency management with remote alcohol monitoring, provide a compelling rationale for examining whether a deposit contract program might provide a feasible, effective, and accessible way of helping people reduce drinking. Though there is limited systematic research on deposit contracts, deposit contract programs for various problems are widely available and have proven quite attractive. For example, a deposit contract weight loss website, has over 887,000 users with $62M in incentives paid. However, it is unclear if deposit contracts would be acceptable (and therefore feasible) to individuals interested in reducing their problem drinking. Therefore, we feel that the proposed deposit contract intervention utilizing remote alcohol monitoring could be a widely available and acceptable intervention for problem drinking for three reasons: (1) because of the effectiveness and convenience of our contingency management intervention using remote alcohol monitoring; (2) because of the widespread success of other deposit contract programs like DietBetã; and (3) because the potentially increased attractiveness and effectiveness of an intervention that can return an amount greater than the deposit. The adoption of a deposit contract intervention plus remote alcohol monitoring will only be accelerated by the "FitBit"-style alcohol monitoring devices being developed by many companies (we are currently independently evaluating one such device). However, making deposit contracts widely available will need evidence of their effectiveness, which requires large randomized controlled trials. The purpose of this R21 application is to develop this evidence by demonstrating that deposit contracts with remote alcohol monitoring are feasible and provide evidence of effectiveness needed to design and justify future studies.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 80
• Est. completion date: July 1, 2024
• Est. primary completion date: May 31, 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 21 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• at least 21 years of age

• report > 8 heavy drinking episodes during the last 28 days

• want to reduce their alcohol use

• are willing to wear a transdermal alcohol monitor

• own a smartphone

• are willing and able to deposit $200

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Alcohol Abuse
• Alcoholism
• Contingency Management

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Deposit Contract
A deposit contract requires individuals to put down money that is earned back contingently upon meeting their goals.

Other:
• Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring
Using a SCRAM-Cam device participants will be monitored for their alcohol use.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University Of North Texas	Denton	Texas

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of North Texas, Denton, TX	The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (9)

Bigelow G, Strickler D, Liebson I, Griffiths R. Maintaining disulfiram ingestion among outpatient alcoholics: a security-deposit contingency contracting procedure. Behav Res Ther. 1976;14(5):378-81. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(76)90028-0. No abstract available. — View Citation

Burns RJ, Rothman AJ. Comparing Types of Financial Incentives to Promote Walking: An Experimental Test. Appl Psychol Health Well Being. 2018 Jul;10(2):193-214. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12126. Epub 2018 Apr 19. — View Citation

Dallery J, Raiff BR, Grabinski MJ, Marsch LA. Technology-Based Contingency Management in the Treatment of Substance-Use Disorders. Perspect Behav Sci. 2019 Jul 9;42(3):445-464. doi: 10.1007/s40614-019-00214-1. eCollection 2019 Sep. — View Citation

Ersner-Hershfield SM, Connors GJ, Maisto SA. Clinical and experimental utility of refundable deposits. Behav Res Ther. 1981;19(5):455-7. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(81)90137-6. No abstract available. — View Citation

Jarvis BP, Dallery J. Internet-based self-tailored deposit contracts to promote smoking reduction and abstinence. J Appl Behav Anal. 2017 Apr;50(2):189-205. doi: 10.1002/jaba.377. Epub 2017 Feb 17. — View Citation

Paxton R. The effects of a deposit contract as a component in a behavioural programme for stopping smoking. Behav Res Ther. 1980;18(1):45-50. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(80)90068-6. No abstract available. — View Citation

Pomerleau O, Pertschuk M, Adkins D, Brady JP. A comparison of behavioral and traditional treatment for middle-income problem drinkers. J Behav Med. 1978 Jun;1(2):187-200. doi: 10.1007/BF00846639. — View Citation

Volpp KG, John LK, Troxel AB, Norton L, Fassbender J, Loewenstein G. Financial incentive-based approaches for weight loss: a randomized trial. JAMA. 2008 Dec 10;300(22):2631-7. doi: 10.1001/jama.2008.804. — View Citation

White JS, Dow WH, Rungruanghiranya S. Commitment contracts and team incentives: a randomized controlled trial for smoking cessation in Thailand. Am J Prev Med. 2013 Nov;45(5):533-42. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2013.06.020. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Transdermal Alcohol Content	Measurement produced while wearing Transdermal Alcohol Monitor	4 weeks continuously