Contingency Management to Reduce Alcohol Use in a Soup Kitchen Sample

Summary

Alcohol use and alcohol-related disorders are highly prevalent in soup kitchen users, and this population is overrepresented by minorities and disproportionately affected by alcohol-related morbidity and mortality. Contingency management is a behavioral intervention effective in reducing substance use, but few studies have evaluated the efficacy of contingency management in the context of soup kitchens or homeless programs. The investigators found that contingency management, using a twice weekly testing and reinforcement schedule, had benefits for decreasing drinking in individuals receiving services at a homeless shelter. This study will replicate and extend these earlier findings to a soup kitchen population using more sophisticated alcohol monitoring procedures to better assess the extent of drinking in this group and in response to a contingency management intervention reinforcing submission of negative breath samples. Specifically, 40 hazardous drinkers recruited from a soup kitchen will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: alcohol monitoring or the same plus reinforcement for provision of daily negative breath alcohol samples. The interventions will be in effect for 3 weeks, and all participants will also wear transdermal continuous alcohol monitors during the intervention period. Objective and subjective indices of alcohol consumption will be evaluated and compared between and within the treatment conditions. This pilot project will provide information regarding the effect size of contingency management reinforcing negative breath samples in an important health disparities group, and results from this study will guide subsequent grant applications focusing on methods to decrease drinking in this underserved population.

Conditions

• Alcohol Abuse
• Contingency Management

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

breath alcohol monitoring

Daily breath alcohol monitoring

BEHAVIORAL

contingency management

Participants can earn chance to win prizes for negative breath alcohol samples.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

  collaborator NIH

• UConn Health

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Carla Rash, Ph.D. · UConn Health

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-07-31

Primary Completion

2016-11-30

Completion

2016-11-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations