Stage-Based Mobile Intervention for Substance Use Disorders in Primary Care: Development and Test of Acceptability

In 2016, 21 million Americans aged 12 years and older needed treatment for a substance use disorder (SUD). However, only 10% to 11% of individuals requiring SUD treatment received it. Given their access to patients, primary care providers are in a unique position to perform universal Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) to identify individuals at risk, fill gaps in services, and make referrals to specialty treatment when indicated. Major barriers to SBIRT include limited time among providers and low motivation to change among many patients.

The objective of this study was to develop and test the acceptability of a prototype of a mobile-delivered substance use risk intervention (SURI) for primary care patients and a clinical dashboard for providers that can address major barriers to SBIRT for risky drug use. The SURI delivers screening and feedback on SUD risk via mobile tools to patients at home or in the waiting room; for patients at risk, it also delivers a brief intervention based on the transtheoretical model of behavior change (TTM) to facilitate progress through the stages of change for quitting the most problematic drug and for seeking treatment if indicated. The prototype also delivers 30 days of stage-matched text messages and 4 Web-based activities addressing key topics. For providers, the clinical dashboard summarizes the patient's SUD risk scores and stage of change data, and provides stage-matched scripts to guide in-person sessions.

A total of 4 providers from 2 federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) were recruited for the pilot test, and they in turn recruited 5 patients with a known SUD. Furthermore, 3 providers delivered dashboard-guided SBIRT sessions and completed a brief acceptability survey. A total of 4 patients completed a Web-based SURI session and in-person SBIRT session, accessed other program components, and completed 3 acceptability surveys over 30 days. Questions in the surveys were adapted from the National Cancer Institute's Education Materials Review Form. Response options ranged from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree. The criterion for establishing acceptability was an overall rating of 4.0 or higher across items.

For providers, the overall mean acceptability rating was 4.4 (standard deviation [SD] 0.4). Notably, all providers gave a rating of 5.0 for the item, "The program can give me helpful information about my patient." For patients, the overall mean acceptability rating was 4.5 (SD 0.3) for the mobile- and provider-delivered SBIRT sessions and 4.0 (SD 0.4) for the text messages and Web-based activities. One highly rated item was "The program could help me make some positive changes" (4.5).

The SURI program and clinical dashboard, developed to reduce barriers to SBIRT in primary care, were well received by providers and patients.