Mobile Rewarding Activity Centered Treatment

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a highly prevalent and significant public health problem. Behavioral treatments based in the principles of social learning theory and cognitive behavior therapy have been developed and tested for AUD, yet effect sizes are relatively small and rates of relapse following treatment are high. Theoretically informed adjunctive interventions may help to enhance the effects of extant AUD treatments. In particular, evidence suggests that environments lacking in substance-free (SF) activities contribute to the development and maintenance of AUD and that the availability of rewarding SF activities may serve as viable alternatives to compete with alcohol use. Building on the advantages of accessibility and low-cost option afforded by the use of mobile technology, this proposal outlines a well-integrated research and training plan to investigate a mobile health intervention to increase engagement in rewarding SF activities among patients in AUD treatment. This proposed research aims to develop and evaluate a mobile phone ecological momentary assessment plus ecological momentary intervention (EMA+EMI; entitled: mobile - Rewarding Activity Centered Treatment (m-ReACT)) app to augment existing AUD treatment. The m-ReACT app will monitor self-reported rewarding SF activity engagement in real-time and deliver personalized feedback that encourages participants to engage in highly rewarding activities that are goal-oriented and support positive treatment outcomes. This proposed intervention will be developed in two phases. Phase 1 will develop the m-ReACT app and Phase 2 will evaluate its efficacy in randomized control pilot trial with a sample of 50 AUD patients who have recently initiated outpatient AUD treatment. Participants in the pilot RCT will be randomly assigned to either the m-ReACT condition or an active control condition. It is hypothesized that m-ReACT will result in increased rates of percent days of alcohol abstinence and increased reinforc