A brief intervention in reducing alcohol consumption in China: study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

Brief Alcohol Intervention
The participants in treatment group 1 received free three-time counsel and constant multi-media messages about the topic of alcohol consumption for three months. One-to-one counseling services will be provided via a telephone call, which is based on World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations (Babor, 2001). A total of three counsels are conducted, which are set on the second week, sixth and tenth week after the baseline survey.
Brief intervention counselors are from the team of this study and trained by Hongkong University. All counselors are required to attend a full-day workshop before participant recruitment. The contents of the workshop include: (1) knowledge of excessive drinking harms and benefits of controlling drinking; (2) overview of AUDIT; (3) alcohol reduction advices; (4) a standard procedure of brief intervention.
An experienced research staff provides supervision and assistance at each brief intervention session, to ensure the accurate delivery of the intervention. All advisors follow a standardized process and complete a checklist table.
Incentive group
The participants in treatment group 2 will receive cash incentives according to the results of EtG test. Firstly, a certain amount of vouchers with RMB￥100 (≈US$15.6) was given to the participants, which was equivalent to the reward for passing seven tests. Then, the voucher would be deducted according to every EtG test result. Finally, the participants will receive cash according to the vouchers.

2021-08-01

2021-09-30

Primary outcomes:
1. Self-reported drinking quantity (drinks per week).
2. Self-reported binge drinking frequency (number of binges per week).
3. Self-reported drinking frequency (drinking days per week).
4. Self-reported drinking intensity (number of drinks per drinking day).
5. The proportion of people who drink alcohol according to the EtG test.

Secondary outcomes:
1. Health status indicators, including sleep quality, and mental health in the past one month.
2. Life satisfaction.
3. Health-care utilization, including emergency/outpatient visits, medical hospitalization, mean days in hospital in the past one month.
4. Productivity and income, which are income per day, and working hours per day in the past one month.
5. Household expenditure includes the daily expenditure for alcohol, children, parents, and health care services in the past one month.
6. Score on the knowledge about the harm of alcohol consumption.

Participants are assessed at baseline, 1,2,3 month after treatment initiation (Table 1). Participants are required to take a test four times a week for 1-4 weeks, twice a week for 5-8 weeks, and once a week for 9-11 weeks. In order to avoid cheating by abstaining from alcohol only the day before the test, the time of each test was randomly determined by the program team and participants are informed the night before. The baseline questionnaire measures participants’ drinking behavior (eg, Daily alcohol consumption, age of starting drinking, whether and the number of attempts to quit or reduce, methods for quitting used in past). At weeks 2, 6 and 10 after the intervention initiation, participants are followed up by trained counselors with a phone call. The Prime Screen single panel urine test paper is used to conduct the ethyl glucuronide (EtG) test. Participants are informed that they may withdraw from the study at any time without giving a reason.

Random at the individual level by layering by a computer.

individual

No

0

442 local residents

154 local residents control, 154 local residents brief intervention, 154 local residents brief intervention with financial incentives.