Digital psychological self-care for problematic alcohol use: feasibility of a new clinical concept

Digital interventions based on cognitive-behavioural therapy and relapse prevention can increase treatment access for people with problematic alcohol use, but for these interventions to be cost-effective, clinician workload needs to remain low while ensuring patient adherence and effects. Digital psychological self-care is the provision of a self-guided digital intervention within a structured care process.

To investigate the feasibility and preliminary effects of digital psychological self-care for reducing alcohol consumption.

Thirty-six adults with problematic alcohol use received digital psychological self-care during 8 weeks, including telephone assessments as well as filling out self-rated questionnaires, before, directly after and 3 months after the intervention. Intervention adherence, usefulness, credibility and use of clinician time were assessed, along with preliminary effects on alcohol consumption. The study was prospectively registered as a clinical trial (NCT05037630).

Most participants used the intervention daily or several times a week. The digital intervention was regarded as credible and useful, and there were no reported adverse effects. Around 1 h of clinician time per participant was spent on telephone assessments. At the 3-month follow-up, preliminary within-group effects on alcohol consumption were moderate (standardised drinks per week, Hedge's g = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.19-1.21; heavy drinking days, Hedge's g = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.09-1.11), reflecting a decrease from 23 to 13 drinks per week on average.

Digital psychological self-care for reducing alcohol consumption appears both feasible and preliminarily effective and should be further optimised and studied in larger trials.