A Smartphone Application to Support Recovery From Alcoholism

From the abstract:

This article describes a randomized clinical trial of a smartphone application called the Addiction–Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (A-CHESS), which was designed to improve continuing care for AUDs by offering emotional and instrumental support at almost any time and place. The theoretical basis of A-CHESS is self-determination theory, which posits that meeting needs contributes to an individual’s adaptive functioning: being perceived as competent, feeling related to others, and feeling internally motivated and not coerced in one’s actions. Self-determination theory was chosen because evidence suggested that its constructs could be causal mechanisms that would affect A-CHESS targets, and because self-determination theory is broad and fundamental enough to cover a complex, multifaceted eHealth intervention such as A-CHESS. This study reports the primary outcome from a trial that hypothesized that patients leaving residential care for AUDs who received treatment as usual plus a multifeatured smartphone application would have fewer risky drinking days over 12 months than patients receiving only treatment as usual. We also report on 2 secondary outcomes: abstinence and negative consequences of drinking.

Source: JAMA Psychiatry
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