View clinical trials related to Alcohol Drinking.
Filter by:Episodic future thinking (EFT) is based on the new science of prospection, which was first identified in a Science publication in 2007 and refers to pre-experiencing the future by simulation. Considerable evidence suggests that prospection is important for understanding human cognition, affect, motivation, and action. Individuals with damaged frontal areas, as well as individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD), show deficits in planning prospectively. One systematic method to engender prospection is via EFT. EFT, as applied in our prior studies and in this proposal consists of having participants develop positive plausible future events that correspond to several future time frames (e.g., 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months etc). For each of these timeframes participants are asked to concretize the events (e.g., What are you doing? Who will be there? What will you see, hear, smell, and feel?). We and others have used EFT to decrease delay discounting (DD) in individuals with AUD and smokers, as well as normal weight, overweight, and obese populations when compared to the control condition, control episodic thinking (CET). Consistent with reinforcer pathology, EFT also reduces alcohol valuation in the purchase task among individuals with AUD. However, no study to date has examined whether EFT reduces alcohol self-administration in the laboratory. Moreover, the neural correlates of EFT in AUD are also unknown. In these studies, we propose to test an intervention, EFT, which we hypothesize will decrease reinforcer pathology measures in a bar-like setting in the laboratory; that is, EFT will decrease delay discounting, as well as alcohol self-administration, demand, and craving compared to a control episodic thinking (CET) condition. Moreover, we hypothesize EFT will enhance activation in brain regions associated with prospection (e.g., hippocampus and amygdala) and the executive decision system (e.g., DLPFC). We will also examine the effect of EFT on real-world drinking.
Sexual assault can lead to devastating consequences including the development of chronic conditions including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorders (AUD). Interventions delivered soon after exposure to assault can decrease the long-term negative consequences of sexual assault but existing interventions are limited in their ability to target concurrent PTSD symptoms and alcohol use and little is known about how to make best practice treatment decisions in the early period following sexual assault. A greater emphasis on transdiagnostic processes that are related to both PTSD and alcohol use, such as fear and reward systems, can elucidate mechanisms of recovery, lead to the development of more effective intervention approaches, and guide clinical decision making for patients recently exposed to sexual assault.
As most adolescents visit a healthcare provider once a year, health behavior change interventions linked to clinic-based health information technologies hold significant promise for improving healthcare quality and subsequent behavioral health outcomes for adolescents (Baird, 2014, Harris, 2017). Recognizing the potential to leverage recent advances in machine learning and interactive narrative environments, the investigators are now well positioned to design health behavior change systems that extend the reach of clinicians to realize significant impacts on behavior change for adolescent preventive health. The proposed project centers on the design, development, and evaluation of a clinically-integrated health behavior change system for adolescents. CHANGEGRADIENTS will introduce an innovative reinforcement learning-based feedback loop in which adolescent patients interact with personalized behavior change interactive narratives that are dynamically personalized and realized in a rich narrative-centered virtual environment. CHANGEGRADIENTS will iteratively improve its behavior change models using policy gradient methods for Reinforcement Learning (RL) designed to optimize adolescents' achieved behavior change outcomes. This in turn will enable CHANGEGRADIENTS to generate more effective behavior change narratives, which will then lead to further improved behavior change outcomes. With a focus on risky behaviors and an emphasis on alcohol use, adolescents will interact with CHANGEGRADIENTS to develop an experiential understanding of the dynamics and consequences of their alcohol use decisions. The proposed project holds significant transformative potential for (1) producing theoretical and practical advances in how to realize significant impacts on adolescent health behavior change through novel interactive narrative technologies integrated with policy-based reinforcement learning, (2) devising sample-efficient policy gradient methods for RL that produce personalized behavior change experiences by integrating theoretically based models of health behavior change with data-driven models of interactive narrative generation, and (3) promoting new models for integrating personalized health behavior change technologies into clinical care that extend the effective reach of clinicians.
Double-blind randomised, parallel-group, three-arm, multicentre, placebo-controlled study The primary objective is to demonstrate the superiority of the combination of Periactine® (cyproheptadine 8 mg/day or 12 mg/day) and Alpress® (prazosin 5 mg/day or 10 mg/day) over placebo on the reduction of the total alcohol consumption (TAC), in alcohol-dependent patients. 180 patients will be randomised into the two treatment groups (N=60 in the low-dose group and N=60 in the high-dose group) and the placebo group (N=60).
The purpose of this study is to evaluate a text-message delivered approach for improving college adjustment and experience and reducing risky alcohol use in young adult college students. The study compares a text-message delivered brief motivational intervention for reducing alcohol use and increasing engagement in alcohol-free activities, to text-message delivered alcohol and nutrition education sessions. The investigators predict that individuals who receive the brief motivational intervention will report less alcohol use and fewer related problems 3 months following the intervention compared to those who receive the education sessions. The investigators also expect that these individuals will report greater engagement in alcohol-free activities compared to those who receive the education sessions.
Randomized, multi-center, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled study. Eligible subjects will be randomized to receive either 0.33 mg AD04 or placebo orally twice-daily for 24 weeks in conjunction with brief psychological counseling. Randomization will be stratified by: 1. Level of alcohol consumption prior to enrollment in the study (heavy drinkers averaging <10 drinks per day of drinking or very heavy drinkers averaging ≥10 drinks per day of drinking), and 2. Gender (male or female).
The overall objective of the proposed research is to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among college students. The investigators propose to accomplish this by using the innovative, engineering-inspired multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) to develop a highly effective, appealing, economical, and readily scalable internet-delivered behavioral intervention targeting the intersection of alcohol use and sexual risk behavior. The rate of STIs on college campuses is alarming: one in four college students is diagnosed with an STI at least once during their college experience. Sexual activity when drinking alcohol is highly prevalent among college students. Alcohol use is known to contribute to the sexual risk behaviors that are most responsible for the transmission of STIs, namely unprotected sex, contact with numerous partners, and "hook-ups" (casual sexual encounters). Few interventions have been developed that explicitly target the intersection of alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors, and none have been optimized. In order to reduce the incidence of STI transmission among this and other high-risk groups, a new approach is needed. MOST is a comprehensive methodological framework that brings the power of engineering principles to bear on optimization of behavioral interventions. MOST enables researchers to experimentally test the individual components in an intervention to determine their effectiveness, indicating which components need to be revised and re-tested. Given the high rates of alcohol use and sex among college students, the college setting provides an ideal opportunity for intervening on alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors. The proposed study will include a diverse population of college students on 4 campuses which will increase the generalizability of the findings. The specific aims are to (1) develop and pilot test an initial set of online intervention components targeting the link between alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors, (2) use the MOST approach to build an optimized preventive intervention, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the newly optimized preventive intervention using a fully powered randomized controlled trial (RCT). This work will result in a new, more potent behavioral intervention that will reduce the incidence of STIs among college students in the US, and will lay the groundwork for a new generation of highly effective STI prevention interventions aimed at other subpopulations at risk.
This is a phase 4, open-label, feasibility study of extended release naltrexone (Vivitrol, Alkermes Pharmaceutical) and case management for treatment of alcohol use disorders in the ED. Excess alcohol use is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and contributes to a large number of emergency department (ED) visits. The rate of alcohol-related ED visits is increasing, and there is evidence that this increase may be driven by a subset of patients who frequently visit the ED due to an underlying alcohol use disorder (AUD). The proposed study will assess the feasibility of implementing a multimodal treatment for AUD in the emergency department for 25 patients with AUD. The rationale for including each component of the multimodal treatment is outlined below. Pharmacotherapy is recommended as the standard of care for alcohol use disorders. Of the four drugs approved by the FDA for treatment of alcohol use disorder, extended release naltrexone has been found to be superior at reducing healthcare utilization, increasing detoxification facility use, and reducing total cost. Fewer than 1 in 4 patients with AUD currently receives treatment with an FDA approved agent and use of these drugs in EDs is virtually non-existent. ED patients with alcohol use disorders frequently suffer from multiple medical, mental health, and social problems that influence their health. Providing such patients with case management services has shown promise in improving health related outcomes while curbing ED utilization and healthcare costs. Regardless of comorbidity, limited access to substance use and mental health services is a significant barrier to receiving treatment, and large disparities exist in access based on income level. Facilitated referrals, where a healthcare worker communicates with the patient and service providers and assists the patient with obtaining follow up, have been used effectively to improve access to specialty care after ED discharge. Case managers are familiar with community treatment resources and are well versed in providing facilitated referrals. The primary hypothesis is that implementing this multimodal treatment will be feasible in an ED setting and will reduce alcohol use. Feasibility measures (recruitment, retention, continuation of treatment after the trial) are the primary outcomes. The intent of the intervention is to change drinking behavior in a way that benefits participants' health and quality of life. As such, we will conduct a limited efficacy assessment. Treatment efficacy will be assessed by comparing alcohol consumption, quality of life, and life consequences related to alcohol use before and after the intervention. The primary efficacy outcome is change in total alcohol consumption measured by a 2 week timeline follow back. Change from baseline will be assessed after the 3 month intervention period, and at the conclusion of the study follow up period for all outcomes.
Heavy episodic drinking and sexual assault (SA) are problematic on college campuses. This project will adapt already developed interventions targeting alcohol use and SA to a mHealth format and involve content that incorporates federal guidelines and CDC recommendations to integrate both bystander intervention and risk reduction content with new innovative personalized content for each risk group (cis-gender heterosexual men, cis-gender heterosexual women, and sexual/gender minorities). Alpha testing with key stakeholders, an open pilot trial, and a randomized pilot trial will be conducted to establish acceptability and to estimate sample size for a larger randomized controlled trial.
The proposed project will test three commercial cellphone breathalyzers against a police grade breathalyzer device.The study will test the accuracy of these smartphone breathalyzers at assessing Breath Alcohol Content (BrAC) against a standard police grade breathalyzer. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap by determining the validity of smartphone paired breathalyzer devices to accurately assess BrAC. Data collection includes collection of BrAC measurements, as well as survey data.