Active clinical trials for "Alcohol Drinking"

The goal of this study is to compare [C-11]NOP-1A binding in recently abstinent alcohol use disorders and controls

Two hundred and ninety-three college students who reported drinking in the past month were randomly assigned to condition in a 2 (self-affirmation: values vs. control writing task) x 2 (implementation intentions: formed vs. not formed) between-subjects factorial design. Participants first completed a self-affirmation or control writing task, then read an article describing the risks of drinking. Next, all participants reported their common drinking behaviors and contexts, and then selected two harm-reduction strategies making either general intentions to use the strategies or making implementation intentions to use the strategies. Alcohol consumption was measured 1 and 2 weeks after the experimental session.

This research seeks to evaluate expressive writing as a novel intervention for problem drinking among college students. The vast majority of individually focused brief interventions targeting college drinking have focused on personalized feedback approaches and recent innovations have largely been limited to finer distinctions of these, which require assessment and programming for implementation. The present research proposes expressive writing as a novel alternative, which has been used extensively in other domains but not as an alcohol intervention strategy. H1a: Participants writing about negative drinking events will show reduced drinking and drinking-related negative consequences relative to students in the neutral control group. H1b: Participants writing about distressing non-alcohol events will show increased psychological wellbeing relative to students in the neutral control group. H1c: Participants writing about negative drinking events will show reduced drinking and consequences compared with an empirically-supported brief intervention (i.e., PNF). This is an exploratory hypothesis. H2a: Alcohol narratives will have stronger effects on alcohol outcomes relative to distress narratives. H2b: Alcohol guilt narratives will have the strongest effect on alcohol outcomes relative to all other conditions. H3a: Expression of guilt, assessed by self-report and by content coding with LIWC, will mediate intervention effects on drinking outcomes. H3b: Change thought, assessed by LIWC coding, will mediate intervention effects on drinking.

The current study is the first empirical investigation that directly addresses the correspondence between responses regarding indicators of risky sexual behavior while under the influence of alcohol in the laboratory and the occurrence of sexually risky behavior while under the influence of alcohol in the natural environment, by use of Ecological Sampling Methodology (ESM). The study will allow us to compare and contrast implicit and explicit assessments of sexual risk in respect to future behavior in the natural environment. The data obtained will thus provide new information regarding the external validity of alcohol administration studies of sexual risk behavior and will provide information to optimize the selection of dependent measures. The current study also represents the first attempt to test a causal model linking alcohol intoxication and risky sexual behavior as a function of both automatic, reflexive, approach tendencies and effortful, deliberative, self-control (operationalized by executive working memory in this application). The ESM study will augment the findings of the experiment by providing a detailed assessment of contextual factors that affect sexual risk behavior as well as replicating and extending the findings of the experiment to sexual risk situations in the natural environment. Finally, to our knowledge there has been only one experimental study of alcohol and sexual risk in MSM (Maisto, Palfai, Vanable, Heath, & Woolf-King, 2012), which is remarkable given that MSM have been identified as the population at highest risk to contract the HIV in the U.S. since the virus was identified in the early 1980s. Thus the proposed research is only the second attempt to add to an understanding of the connections among alcohol, cognitive processes, and sexual risk behaviors in MSM.

Alcohol is the most harmful psychoactive substance in terms of overall damage. Although abstinence remains the objective of most pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches addressing alcohol use disorder (AUD), new therapeutic objectives of reduced alcohol intake and controlled-drinking have emerged. ETHER ("Education THEérapeutique pour la Réduction des dommages en alcoologie" or therapeutic education for the reduction of alcohol-related harms) is an ongoing, multicentre, community-based mixed-methods study, which aims to evaluate the innovative therapeutic patient education (TPE) programme named "Choizitaconso". This programme teaches psychosocial skills to people with alcohol use disorder (PWAUD), to help them (re)establish controlled drinking and reduce harms. The evaluation of the programme will rely on a sequential explanatory design, where the qualitative study (16 semi-structured interviews) will assist in explaining and interpreting the findings of the controlled before-and-after quantitative study.

Alcohol is one of the leading contributors to premature mortality and disability. Most people with alcohol problems will never seek treatment. There is a need to develop alternate ways to help problem drinkers outside of formal treatment settings. One promising strategy is Internet-based interventions for problem drinkers. Our recently completed RCT comparing a brief (Check Your Drinking; CYD) versus an extended (Alcohol Help Centre; AHC) Internet intervention for problem drinkers found that, while there was a reduction in drinking across time for both interventions, there was no significant (p > .05) difference in reductions in drinking between the two interventions. Based on these results, it is not justifiable to say that either intervention 'worked' as there was no comparison condition of participants who received no active intervention. The current trial proposes to address this limitation by conducting an RCT comparing the CYD, AHC, and a no intervention control condition. Participants will be recruited through Amazon's MTurk crowdsourcing platform. Participants identified as problem drinkers based on an initial survey will be invited to complete another survey in 6 months time. Those who are interested will be randomized to receive access to the Check Your Drinking screener (CYD condition), Alcohol Help Centre (AHC condition) or a feedback questionnaire (control condition). At six-months post-baseline, the MTurk portal will be used to send invitation emails that contain a link to the follow-up survey. The primary hypothesis to be tested is that participants receiving access to the AHC intervention will report a greater reduction in AUDIT-C scores and in number of drinks in a typical week than participants in the CYD intervention. Further, participants in the CYD condition will report a greater level of reduction AUDIT-C scores and in number of drinks in a typical week between the baseline survey and six-month follow-up as compared to participants in the no intervention control condition.

MB-College (MBC) is an 9-week, 9 session program (i.e., the study intervention being tested in the RCT) providing systematic and intensive training in mindfulness meditation practices, applied to health behaviors relevant to college students and young adults. The MBC intervention will be administered live, online via the free video conferencing platform, Zoom, to all eligible study participants enrolled in the active arms of the study. In addition to the 9-week, 9 session MBC class, referred to as "standard dose MBC" from here on out, investigators will also be testing a "low-dose MBC" version of the intervention, where each weekly session will run 1.5 hours in length rather than 2.5 hours. This is a 3-arm randomized controlled trial. The standard-dose and low-dose versions of the MBC intervention will be compared to a third arm of the study, a health education active control group. Members of the control group will be offered the MBC class upon completion of the research study. The Study Aims are to: (1) Evaluate feasibility and acceptability of MBC delivered in two online formats (standard dose vs. low dose). (2) Evaluate impacts of MBC standard-dose vs. MBC low-dose vs. health education control group on health conditions relevant for emerging adults, demonstrated to be influenced by MBC in a prior study, specifically depressive symptoms, loneliness, and sedentary activity. (3) Explore mechanisms by which MBC may exert effects on aforementioned health conditions, including interoceptive awareness, decentering, and perceived stress. Participant Population: young adults aged 18-29 years of age, residing in the United States who screen eligible will be invited to enroll. Students will be screened using a two-part process taking place online. Research assessments at baseline and 3-month will take place digitally using Qualtrics, LLC (Provo, UT, USA) survey management tool. Participants will be sent secure links via email that can be accessed with their participant identification number. Enrolled participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) standard MBC; (2) low-dose MBC or (3) health education control group. The control group will be given the opportunity to participate in the intervention after the study MBC course is completed and follow-up assessments have been administered.

A substantial percentage of individuals with bulimia nervosa (BN) also meet criteria for a co-occurring substance use disorder, such as alcohol abuse or dependence; however, research examining this sub-group of patients with BN is limited. Understanding characteristics common to both eating and alcohol use disorders may enhance understanding of the mechanisms that could contribute to the co-occurrence and perpetuation of these disorders. Individuals with BN and alcohol use disorders appear to share some behavioral traits, and therefore, the primary aim of the current study is to compare patients with BN with and without an alcohol use disorder and normal controls on measures assessing an individual's mood and ability to perform certain tasks. Participants will be asked to complete computer-administered and paper-and-pencil assessments and two laboratory test meals on separate days. By probing the underpinnings of BN and alcohol use disorders, the investigators can determine whether these disorders have a shared diathesis, which will lay an essential foundation for future research to examine biological and genetic correlates of these disorders. Finally, as little is known about the treatment of patients with BN and a co-occurring alcohol use disorder, an exploratory aim of the current study is evaluate the suitability and efficacy of a 20-session cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) addressing both bulimic symptoms and alcohol use.

The proposed project will test three commercial cellphone breathalyzers against a police grade breathalyzer device.The study will test the accuracy of these smartphone breathalyzers at assessing Breath Alcohol Content (BrAC) against a standard police grade breathalyzer. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap by determining the validity of smartphone paired breathalyzer devices to accurately assess BrAC. Data collection includes collection of BrAC measurements, as well as survey data.

The aim of this project is to assess reward- based learning behavior and its association with alterations in dopaminergic and glutamatergic transmission in detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and matched controls. The investigators will explore how these alterations interact with clinical and psychosocial factors which can modify the relapse risk and learning deficits. Patients will be detoxified in an inpatient setting. Clinical assessments, behavioral paradigms of learning and brain imaging will be carried out within at least 4 half- lives after any psychotropic medication. The investigators will implement and apply functional imaging paradigms assessing Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer and reversal learning tasks and associate model parameters of learning with alcohol craving, intake and prospective relapse risk. In this project, the impact of the dopamine x glutamate interaction on learning deficits and consecutive relapse probability is targeted with [18F]fallypride PET and the measurement of absolute concentrations of glutamate with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS).