Pilot Study of a Text Message Platform to Reduce Risky Drinking in Young Adults

Greater than 45% of young adults have heavy episodic drinking (HED; 5/4 drinks per occasion form men/women), resulting in significant health risks, including injury and death. Early identification and secondary prevention of HED using screening, brief interventions and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is advocated by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) as a way to reduce injury and health consequences. Each day in the United States, there are over 2700 emergency department (ED) visits associated with alcohol, unfortunately, SBIRT is rarely performed in the ED due to time and training requirements. Our application seeks to solve this problem by integrating SBIRT into ED care through the use of ecological assessments with interventions. We will incorporate components of the NIAAA 2005 Clinicians Guide into automated weekly assessments (EA) and branching algorithms for personalized interventions (EA&I) delivered in real-time through mobile phone text messaging to young adults with a history of at-risk drinking behavior. We will assess the feasibility of EA&I to study young adults with a history of at-risk drinking and assess the variability in outcomes in patients undergoing EA&I, EA or standard care. We expect to find that this ED-initiated and outpatientcontinued platform will improve collection of drinking behavior, delivery of real-world motivational feedback and follow-up in young adults with at-risk drinking histories. We anticipate that short-term HED will be reduced in those subjects randomized to EA&I. We will use this information to support further studies with adequate power to show ED-initiated EA&I reduce long-term HED and its adverse consequences in young adults.

Inclusion criteria

• 18-24 years
• English speaking
• Owns a personal phone with text messaging

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnant
• Prisoner
• Treated for alcohol dependence or abuse
• Treated for psychiatric disorder