Assessing the Effectiveness and Mechanisms of Action of a Smartphone App Designed to Reduce Unhealthy Alcohol Consumption: Randomized Controlled Trial

Unhealthy alcohol use is common and causes tremendous harm. Most people with unhealthy alcohol use will never seek formal alcohol treatment. As an alternative, smartphone apps have been developed as one means to provide help to people concerned about their alcohol use. While such apps are widely available, the large majority have little or no evidence base, and research has indicated that some may actually do more harm than good. An app with proven efficacy at reducing alcohol consumption is needed in order to capitalize on this opportunity to motivate the large number of people seeking assistance using this promising technology.

This study will recruit people who consume alcohol in an unhealthy manner. Participants will be assigned by chance to one of two groups to either receive access to: 1) the full app; or 2) a copy of the app where only the educational content is provided (as opposed to the full intervention content of the app). Participants will be contacted 6 months after consenting to the study to assess changes in their drinking. We predict that the full app will lead to larger reductions in drinking and a more sustained impact than the educational content only app. In addition, this study will help us understand which components of the smartphone app are important to use in order to promote reductions in alcohol consumption.