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A randomized controlled trial of an Internet-based intervention for alcohol abusers: Twelve-month follow-up results

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Check Your Drinking screener

www.checkyourdrinking.net

22 Item Survey Contains: AUDIT Drinking on each day of a typical week Greatest amount on a single occasion Experience of psychosocial

consequences Demographics

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CheckYourDrinking.net 2.0

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Final Report

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Recruitment by telephone

Use RDD telephone survey to identify at-risk drinkers Identify those who are hypothetically interested

in an Internet program that provides a summary of the person’s drinking and compares it to the drinking of other Canadians Home access to the Internet Ask these people if they are interested in taking part in

a study to help us revise and evaluate self-help materials

Send description and consent form Randomly assign to receive or not receive intervention Follow-up to assess differences at three, six and twelve

months ($20 payment at each time point)

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Subject recruitment

RDD screening survey of 8,467 respondents Excluded:

AUDIT-C < 4: 5,721 Not interested in online self-help materials: 1,936 No home internet: 100 Did not agree to view consent form: 316 Viewed consent form but did not sign and return: 209

Randomized to condition: 185Complete 3, 6 and 12 month follow-up data available for 86% of sample

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Data analysis challenges

Skewed data – trimmed weekly drinking variable; combined other drinking variables into AUDIT-C scale as outcome measures

Missing data – replaced missing values with respective baseline values

Wide range of problem severity – split sample into AUDIT > 11 versus AUDIT 4-10

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Drinks per week

02468

1012141618202224

Baseline 3 month 6 month 12 month

Internet

Control

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AUDIT-C score

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8

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Baseline 3 month 6 month 12 month

Internet

Control

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Issues running the study

One-third of people assigned to experimental condition are not accessing the website Study becomes one testing the

impact of providing access to the intervention

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Interpretting the results

Me: Impact of the CYD can still be seen at 12 months; however, it is diminishedMy friend and esteemed colleague, Keith:

"After scaling K2 entirely whilst walking on his hands without any equipment or clothing, Dr. Cunningham commented to the world media that yes, what he had done was no doubt easier than doing the same thing on Mount Everest, a failure he knew he would brood over for the rest of his days."

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Collaborators, Funding, and Conflict of Interest

Collaborators:Keith Humphreys, Cameron Wild, Joanne

Cordingley, & Trevor van Mierlo

Sources of Funding:National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and

Alcoholism

Conflict of InterestDr. Cunningham has acted as a paid consultant

to V-CC Inc., the owner of the Check Your Drinking software.