Automated Telephone Follow-up in the Swedish Prison and Probation Services

Substance Abuse Clinical Trial

Official title:

Automated Telephone Follow-up in the Swedish Prison and Probation Services. A Randomized Controlled Trail.

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01727882
• Other study ID #: 535629
• Secondary ID: 535629
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: November 4, 2012
• Last updated: November 12, 2012
• Start date: December 2009
• Est. completion date: September 2010

Study information

• Verified date: November 2012
• Source: Region Skane
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Sweden: Regional Ethical Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether automated telephony may be used for daily assessments of paroled offenders, and whether a brief intervention based on these daily assessments may result in a more positive development compared to daily assessments only.

Description:

To study whether automated telephony could be used in paroled offenders to perform daily assessment of variables associated with recidivism in crime and to study the effects of a brief intervention based on these assessments during 30 days following probation.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 108
• Est. completion date: September 2010
• Est. primary completion date: September 2010
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: Both
• Age group: N/A and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Convicted criminals subject to parole

• Access to a mobile telephone

• Assigned parole officer at parole

Exclusion Criteria:

• No knowledge of spoken Swedish

• Additional intervention such as intensive supervision with electronic monitoring, or in-patient care at a health and rehabilitation clinic

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Safety/Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Prevention

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Affect
• Alcohol Consumption
• Alcohol Drinking
• Substance Abuse

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Brief feedback
A brief feedback was given on the results of the daily assessments, including a recommendation to the paroled offender and a email report was sent to the probation officer.
• Daily assessments
Daily assessment of stress, mental symptoms, alcohol and substance use during 30 consecutive days after parole.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Sweden	The Swedish Prison and Probation Services, Region South and Region East	Norrköping

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Region Skane	Lund University, Malmö University

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Sweden, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Mental symptoms, SCL-8D	Mental Symptoms, assessed with SCL-8D (Fink et al. A Nordic multicentre investigation. Part I: Method and prevalence of psychiatric morbidity. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 1995;92(6):409-418).	During 30 days after probation	No
Secondary	Stress	Stress assessed with the Arnetz and hasson stress questionnaire(Andersson C et al. Measurement properties of the Arnetz and Hasson stress questionnaire in Swedish university freshmen. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 2009;37(3):273-279)	During 30 days after probation	No
Secondary	Stress	Daily Assessment of Daily Experience (Stone AA, Neale JM. Development of a methodology for assessing daily experiences. In: Baum A, Singer J, eds. Advances in Environmental Psychology: Environment and Health. Vol 4. New York: Erlbaum; 1982:49-83).	During 30 days after probation	No
Secondary	Desire to use alcohol and drugs	Desire to use alcohol and drugs (Bohn MJ, Krahn DD, Staehler BA. Development and initial validation of a measure of drinking urges in abstinent alcoholics. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 1995;19(3):600-606).	During 30 days after probation	No
Secondary	Current use of alcohol and drugs	Current use was then assessed by simply asking whether the offender had drunk alcohol or used any drugs the previous day.	During 30 days after probation	No