Active clinical trials for "Alcoholism"

The purpose of this study is to lay the ground work for a fully powered clinical trial of a computer-delivered screener and intervention for alcohol use during pregnancy. The pilot study will include: Evaluation of the usefulness of handheld devices and anonymous screening for self report of at-risk alcohol use among pregnant women. Assessing the validity of an alcohol biomarker, Ethyl Glucoronide (EtG), for the detection of at-risk drinking in pregnant women. Evaluation of the efficacy of a computer-delivered brief intervention and use of tailored handouts to supplement the computer-based brief intervention focusing on alcohol use during pregnancy.

Methadone is effective for heroin addiction, but many methadone patients continue to use cocaine. High magnitude and long-duration voucher-based abstinence reinforcement, in which participants receive vouchers exchangeable for goods and services contingent on providing drug-free biological samples, is one of the most effective treatments for drug addiction and can maintain cocaine abstinence over extended periods of time. Our research on a model Therapeutic Workplace has shown that employment-based abstinence reinforcement, in which participants must provide drug-free urine samples to access the workplace and maintain maximum pay, can maintain cocaine abstinence and reduce drug-related HIV risk behaviors over extended time periods. Our next challenge is to disseminate employment-based reinforcement for the treatment of drug addiction. The investigators propose to develop, manualize, and pilot test a community-friendly Therapeutic Workplace intervention that can be implemented widely throughout the US and elsewhere. Methadone patients who use injection or crack cocaine during methadone treatment will be invited to participate (N = 58) and randomly assigned to one of two groups: Usual Care (control) group or Community Therapeutic Workplace group. As in our prior implementations of the Therapeutic Workplace intervention, Community Therapeutic Workplace participants will enroll in Phase 1 to initiate drug abstinence and acquire job skills. Participants who initiate abstinence and acquire job skills in Phase 1 will be hired into community workplaces with collaborating employers in Phase 2. During Phase 2, employment-based abstinence reinforcement contingencies will be implemented using procedures for workplace drug and alcohol testing overseen by the US Department of Transportation. Using this system, a national provider of Drug-Free Workplace Services will arrange random drug testing and employment-based abstinence reinforcement contingencies in which employees will be required to remain drug-free to maintain employment. The investigators hypothesize that participants in the Community Therapeutic Workplace group will provide more drug-free samples, and engage in fewer HIV-risk behaviors than participants in the Usual Care group. The study will provide vital information on the acceptability of the intervention to participants and employers, and provide preliminary data on the effectiveness of the investigators procedures to maintain abstinence and promote employment.

Heavy drinking can cause serious health, family, and economic problems. Finding treatments that are effective in decreasing heavy drinking among alcohol-dependent individuals is, therefore, an important scientific and health goal. A novel and important strategy to enhance alcoholism treatment efforts uses a personalized medicine approach to optimize treatment effects by selecting the "right" patient therapeutically and potentially with a minimum of adverse events, for a specific medication. This study will extend findings from a randomized double-blind clinical trial of ondansetron, in which the medication was found to reduce drinking among individuals with certain genotypes (i.e., forms of DNA, the material that controls the inheritance of characteristics). The proposed study will address a number of limitations in the prior work, including testing the medication in both European-American and African-American samples.

The purpose of this randomized controlled trial is to evaluate an intervention, Supporting Survivors and Self: An Intervention for Social Supports of Survivors of Partner Abuse and Sexual Aggression (SSS). SSS trains potential recipients of IPV or SA disclosure on the best methods of responding to a victim's disclosure. Consenting college students will be randomized into the SSS intervention or a wait-list control condition. Evaluation data will be multi-informant (i.e., data from both informal supports and victims) and multi-method (i.e., qualitative and quantitative). The investigators hypothesize that individuals receiving the SSS intervention, compared to individuals in the wait-list control condition, will provide less negative and more positive social reactions to victims' disclosure.

Double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design study examining the effects of a norepinephrine alpha1 receptor antagonist (prazosin) on stress reactivity in a laboratory stressor task.

The investigators aim to implement a community-based support program delivered by preschool teachers and volunteer parents that will increase awareness, knowledge and uptake of available services for IPV and substance misuse, and of the link between these issues and poorer education outcomes in children. Through this, the aim is to decrease the prevalence of IPV and substance misuse. The proposed method of implementation is to deliver targeted training to preschool teachers, mothers with children at the preschools, fathers with children at the preschools, and community development officers managing preschools. This project will target the most vulnerable sections of the community and will provide a sustainable and feasible strategy for scale up of the intervention. By intervening through these preschools the investigators aim to identify and support high-risk families early enough to arrest the cycle of violence that results in children themselves becoming victims and perpetrators of such violence.

A wide gap exists between the number of people needing alcohol treatment and those actually receiving it. This study builds on a previous one that indicated that smartphone-based intervention can help increase the number of people who receive alcohol intervention services and decrease treatment barriers. Improvements to the previously developed app, Step Away, will be made. In addition, a new method of delivering the Step Away intervention via an online, interactive chatbot, will be developed with the goal of improving engagement and effectiveness. Participants will be recruited and outcomes between the two interventions examined to determine if the Step Away chatbot has enhanced user engagement, intervention fidelity and outcome efficacy in comparison to the Step Away app amongst a group of problem drinkers. Participants will also be interviewed to determine their perceptions of both interventions with a view towards understanding barriers to user engagement.

This proposed pilot study aims to assess the effects of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) on alcohol use disorder (AUD). Despite promising preliminary research, no investigations to date have focused on NAC with alcohol use as the primary aim or on individuals specifically seeking treatment for AUD. The present proposal is an 7-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 3000mg of NAC in up to 50 participants (25 NAC, 25 placebo). The primary aim of the current study is to establish feasibility, dropout rate, and estimate the standard deviation of the outcome measures in order to estimate the required sample for a fully powered clinical trial and to refine the final measures for use in the fully powered clinical trial. Additionally, this study will explore preliminary efficacy signal of NAC.

The primary specific aim is to examine the efficacy of Paliperidone extended release Paliperidone Palmitate Injection (INVEGA® SUSTENNA™) compared to placebo in decreasing manic symptoms in patients with comorbid DSM-IV bipolar disorder and alcohol dependence. The investigators hypothesize that the Paliperidone Palmitate Injection (INVEGA® SUSTENNA™) treated group will have a statistically significant advantage on improvement in manic symptoms. They will also have higher rate of treatment response and remission.

The purpose of this study is to assess whether JNJ-31001074 taken for 7 days reduces the urge to drink alcohol in alcohol-dependent study participants who are not seeking treatment.