A Text Message Behavioral Intervention to Reduce Alcohol Consumption in Young Adults

Alcohol consumption, especially in the form of heavy episodic drinking (bingeing), is common among young adults. Despite high rates of illness and injury associated with heavy episodic drinking, many young adults are not aware of the risks, few seek help for their drinking and many at-risk are not exposed to prevention-based intervention. Opportunistic screening in hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) tied to behavioral interventions has the potential to prevent future alcohol-related harm among young adults, but efficacy across outcomes has been mixed and large-scale implementation of prevention programs is low. Given the rapidly growing use of cell phone text-messaging (SMS) as a primary form of communication among young adults, SMS could be used to deliver health prevention interventions. We will recruit young adults identified in the ED with hazardous drinking behavior in a 3-arm randomized controlled trial to test the hypothesis that exposure to a 12-week SMS program will result in immediate (3-month) and lasting (6-, and 9-month) decreases in alcohol consumption.

Inclusion criteria

• AUDIT-C score 3 or more for women and 4 or more for men

Exclusion criteria

• Current treatment for psychiatric disease
• Any prior treatment for drug or alcohol use disorder