Validation of daily self-reported alcohol consumption using interactive voice response (IVR) technology

Area of Science:

• Addiction research
• Health informatics
• Behavioral science

Background:

• Accurate measurement of alcohol consumption is crucial for research and clinical interventions.
• Traditional self-report methods for assessing alcohol intake can be subject to recall bias and social desirability.
• Objective measures of alcohol consumption are often impractical for daily, long-term monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the validity of daily alcohol consumption self-reports collected via an automated touch-tone interactive voice response (IVR) system.
• To compare IVR-based self-reports with objective measures (blood alcohol concentration) and collateral reports.

Main Methods:

• Thirty subjects used an IVR system daily for 28 days to report alcohol consumption.
• Objective blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was measured nightly via breath and saliva samples.
• Collateral reports from cohabiting partners and retrospective timeline follow-back data were collected.

Main Results:

• A significant overall correlation of .72 was found between self-reported drinking and measured BAC.
• Within-subject correlations between daily IVR reports and BAC averaged .57.
• Correlations between self-reports and collateral reports averaged .89, and with timeline follow-back data averaged .51.

Conclusions:

• Interactive voice response (IVR) technology offers a user-friendly and valid approach for assessing daily alcohol intake.
• This method shows promise for improving the accuracy of alcohol consumption data, particularly among frequent, heavy drinkers.
• IVR systems may help mitigate the underestimation of alcohol use common with traditional assessment tools.