Development of a Personalized Feedback Intervention Targeting Pain-Related Anxiety for Adults Reporting Hazardous Drinking and Chronic Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Overview

Journal J Stud Alcohol Drugs

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2024 Apr 15

PMID 38619311

Authors

Andrew H Rogers

Clayton Neighbors

Jaye L Derrick

Michael J Zvolensky

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: Among individuals with chronic pain, the rate of hazardous alcohol use is elevated compared with the general population. Yet, hazardous drinkers with chronic pain remain an underserved group. There is a need to develop and test alternative and complementary interventions to reduce hazardous alcohol use among this high-risk segment of the general population. Targeting pain-related anxiety, a candidate mechanism, is one theoretically informed route.

Method: Our approach followed a staged model (1A/1B) to develop and test a novel personalized feedback intervention (PFI). Phase 1A collected qualitative feedback from participants ( = 9; 77.8% female, mean age = 33.86 years, = 8.75) to refine intervention content and evaluate treatment acceptability and feasibility. For Phase 1B, individuals ( = 118; 57.3% male, mean age = 35.24 years, = 11.90) participated in a pilot randomized clinical trial for our novel PFI compared with a health information control condition on alcohol use, intention/motivation to reduce drinking, pain-related anxiety, and expectancies for alcohol analgesia/pain coping for hazardous drinkers with chronic pain.

Results: Phase 1A results supported the feasibility of using a PFI to target pain-related anxiety. Results from Phase 1B indicated that participants reduced drinking and primary outcomes changed in the expected directions, but there were no differential effects of the intervention.

Conclusions: The current data provide preliminary evidence for the utility of computer-based brief interventions to encourage behavior change. However, further refinement of the intervention to target pain-related anxiety is warranted.

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