Sheffield Addictions Research Group, School of Medicine and Population Health, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
JMIR Form Res. 2024 Oct 24;8:e50131. doi: 10.2196/50131.
There is a growing public health evidence base focused on understanding the links between drinking contexts and alcohol consumption. However, the potential value of developing context-based interventions to help people drinking at increasing and higher risk levels to cut down remains underexplored. Digital interventions, such as apps, offer significant potential for delivering context-based interventions as they can collect contextual information and flexibly deliver personalized interventions while addressing barriers associated with face-to-face interventions, such as time constraints.
This early phase study aimed to identify the best method for collecting information on the contexts of alcohol consumption among users of an alcohol reduction app by comparing 2 alternative drinking diaries in terms of user engagement, data quality, usability, and acceptability.
Participants were recruited using the online platform Prolific and were randomly assigned to use 1 of the 2 adapted versions of the Drink Less app for 14 days. Tags (n=31) included tags for location, motivation, and company that participants added to drink records. Occasion type (n=31) included a list of occasion types that participants selected from when adding drink records. We assessed engagement and data quality with app data, usability with a validated questionnaire, and acceptability with semistructured interviews.
Quantitative findings on engagement, data quality, and app usability were good overall, with participants using the app on most days (tags: mean 12.23, SD 2.46 days; occasion type: mean 12.39, SD 2.12 days). However, around 40% of drinking records in tags did not include company and motivation tags. Mean usability scores were similar across app versions (tags: mean 72.39, SD 8.10; occasion type: mean 74.23, SD 6.76). Qualitative analysis found that both versions were acceptable to users and were relevant to their drinking occasions, and participants reported increased awareness of their drinking contexts. Several participants reported that the diary helped them to reduce alcohol consumption in some contexts (eg, home or lone drinking) more than others (eg, social drinking) and suggested that they felt less negative affect recording social drinking contexts out of their home. Participants also suggested the inclusion of "work drinks" in both versions and "habit" as a motivation in the tags version.
There was no clearly better method for collecting data on alcohol consumption as both methods had good user engagement, usability, acceptability, and data quality. Participants recorded sufficient data on their drinking contexts to suggest that an adapted version of Drink Less could be used as the basis for context-specific interventions. The occasion type version may be preferable owing to lower participant burden. A more general consideration is to ensure that context-specific interventions are designed to minimize the risk of unintended positive reinforcement of drinking occasions that are seen as sociable by users.
越来越多的公共卫生证据基础专注于理解饮酒环境与饮酒之间的联系。然而，开发基于情境的干预措施来帮助饮酒量增加和风险水平较高的人减少饮酒量的潜在价值仍未得到充分探索。数字干预措施，如应用程序，为提供基于情境的干预措施提供了巨大的潜力，因为它们可以收集情境信息，并在解决与面对面干预相关的障碍（如时间限制）的同时灵活地提供个性化干预措施。
本初步研究旨在通过比较 2 种替代饮酒日记，确定通过减少饮酒应用程序收集用户饮酒环境信息的最佳方法，这两种方法在用户参与度、数据质量、可用性和可接受性方面进行了比较。
参与者通过在线平台 Prolific 招募，并随机分配使用 Drink Less 应用程序的 2 种改编版本中的 1 种，为期 14 天。标签（n=31）包括参与者添加到饮酒记录中的位置、动机和公司标签。场合类型（n=31）包括参与者在添加饮酒记录时从列表中选择的场合类型。我们使用应用程序数据评估参与度和数据质量、使用经过验证的问卷评估可用性，并使用半结构化访谈评估可接受性。
总体而言，参与度、数据质量和应用程序可用性的定量发现都很好，参与者在大多数日子里使用该应用程序（标签：平均 12.23，SD 2.46 天；场合类型：平均 12.39，SD 2.12 天）。然而，大约 40%的饮酒记录未包含公司和动机标签。应用程序版本的平均可用性得分相似（标签：平均 72.39，SD 8.10；场合类型：平均 74.23，SD 6.76）。定性分析发现，两种版本都被用户接受，并且与他们的饮酒场合相关，参与者报告说对自己的饮酒环境有了更多的了解。一些参与者报告说，日记帮助他们减少了一些情况下的饮酒量（例如，在家或独自饮酒），而在其他情况下（例如，社交饮酒）则没有那么有效，并且他们表示在家外记录社交饮酒环境时感觉不那么负面。参与者还建议在这两个版本中都包含“工作饮酒”和“习惯”作为标签版本的动机。
没有一种方法明显更适合收集酒精消费数据，因为这两种方法都具有良好的用户参与度、可用性、可接受性和数据质量。参与者记录了足够的饮酒环境数据，表明可以将经过改编的 Drink Less 版本用作特定情境干预的基础。场合类型版本可能更可取，因为它对参与者的负担较低。更一般的考虑是确保特定情境的干预措施旨在最大限度地减少用户认为社交的饮酒场合被无意强化的风险。
