Bernstein Steven L, Li Fangyong, Abujarad Fuad, Grant David R, D'Onofrio Gail, Dziura James
Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, United States.
Yale Cancer Center, Yale School of Medicine, United States.
Prev Med Rep. 2023 Mar 15;33:102172. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2023.102172. eCollection 2023 Jun.
Health behavior is an important determinant of health. Adherence to medication and abstinence from harmful substances are two critical health behaviors. Although conceptually related, both are assessed using disparate measures. The goal of this study was to develop and test a new index, gamma, which models health behavior by quantifying the connectedness of discrete incidents of health behavior.
We derive gamma from first principles and use it to reanalyze data from a published trial of treatment for alcohol use disorders. We model a primary endpoint, changes in binge drinking, using gamma and a traditional measure: change in number of monthly binges. The original trial was conducted in an urban hospital emergency department in the U.S.
Incorporating gamma into the model provided additional insights into the relationship between the intervention and long-term changes in drinking.
Gamma provides an additional tool to model the effects of interventions on outcomes in trials of substance use interventions or medication adherence. Gamma measures the pattern of behavior and may increase the explanatory power of models assessing differences between various treatments. The gamma index offers the possibility of novel real-time interventions to promote healthy behaviors.
健康行为是健康的重要决定因素。坚持服药和戒除有害物质是两种关键的健康行为。虽然在概念上相关，但两者都是使用不同的测量方法进行评估的。本研究的目的是开发并测试一种新的指数——伽马指数，该指数通过量化健康行为离散事件的关联性来对健康行为进行建模。
我们从基本原理推导伽马指数，并使用它重新分析一项已发表的酒精使用障碍治疗试验的数据。我们使用伽马指数和一种传统测量方法（每月暴饮次数的变化）对一个主要终点——暴饮的变化进行建模。最初的试验是在美国一家城市医院急诊科进行的。
将伽马指数纳入模型为干预措施与饮酒长期变化之间的关系提供了更多见解。
伽马指数为在物质使用干预或药物依从性试验中对干预措施对结果的影响进行建模提供了一种额外的工具。伽马指数衡量行为模式，可能会增强评估不同治疗方法之间差异的模型的解释力。伽马指数为促进健康行为的新型实时干预提供了可能性。
