Cost Effectiveness of Combined Contingency Management and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Alcohol Use Disorder

Summary

Alcohol contributes to 88,000 deaths and costs an estimated $223 billion annually in the United States. Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is highly prevalent in veterans. The positive public health impact of reducing heavy drinking among veterans with AUD would prevent significant medical morbidity and mortality. Contingency management (CM) is an intensive behavioral therapy that provides incentives to individuals for reducing substance use. Monitoring alcohol abstinence usually requires daily monitoring. Because of this difficulty, CM approaches for treatment of AUD are not currently available to people with AUD. Our group has developed a mobile smart-phone application that allows patients to video themselves using an alcohol breath monitor and transmit the encrypted data to a secure server. This innovation has made the use of CM for outpatient AUD treatment feasible. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of CM as an add-on to cognitive behavioral therapy for AUD. The trial will also explore the potential usefulness of a long-term abstinence incentive ontreatment utilization and alcohol outcomes. Proposed is a trial in which 140 veterans with AUD will be randomized to receive either CM as an add-on to evidence-based CBT or CBT alone. Veterans will also be randomized to one of two long-term incentive conditions (i.e., receipt of a monetary incentive for abstinence/low-risk drinking at 6- months vs. no incentive). This project aims to advance AUD treatment by 1) testing the effectiveness of a mobile health approach that makes CM for AUD feasible, and 2) providing highly needed cost-effectiveness data on the use of behavioral incentives as an adjunct to CBT for the treatment of AUD. These aims are designed to address two significant barriers to the implementation of CM for AUD.

Conditions

• Alcohol Drinking
• Veterans

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Twelve in-person counseling sessions designed to assist participants with becoming abstinent from alcohol use (or reduce use).

BEHAVIORAL

Mobile Contingency Management (mCM)

Abstinence (measured by breath alcohol) will be intermittently reinforced. For each breath alcohol concentration reading that tests negative, a participant will earn a virtual scratch-off lottery ticket that contains 100 different values.

BEHAVIORAL

Long-term incentive

This incentive is $300 for self-reported and bioverified 30-day abstinence from heavy drinking at the follow-up scheduled for 6-months after the initial quit date

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Duke University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-11-26

Primary Completion

2024-04-11

Completion

2024-11-18

Countries

• United States

Study Locations