Test of an online brief alcohol intervention aimed at drinkers in early adolescence and young adulthood

ISRCTN	ISRCTN50512934
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN50512934
Secondary identifying numbers	ZonMw: 50-50130-98-101/2008

Submission date: 21/12/2009
Registration date: 06/04/2010
Last edited: 29/12/2020

Recruitment status: No longer recruiting
Overall study status: Completed
Condition category: Mental and Behavioural Disorders

Prospectively registered

Protocol

Statistical analysis plan

Results

Individual participant data

Plain English summary of protocol

Not provided at time of registration

Study website

Contact information

Dr Renske Spijkerman
Scientific

Montessorilaan 3
Nijmegen
6500 HE
Netherlands

Phone	+31 (0)70 243 615 767
Email	r.spijkerman@pwo.ru.nl

Study information

Study design	Three-arm randomised controlled trial
Primary study design	Interventional
Secondary study design	Randomised controlled trial
Study setting(s)	Other
Study type	Prevention
Participant information sheet	Not available in web format, please use the contact details below to request a patient information sheet
Scientific title	The effectiveness of a web-based brief alcohol intervention in reducing underage drinking and the added value of normative feedback: a three-arm randomised controlled trial
Study acronym	Jongeren drinktest (adolescent online drinktest)
Study objectives	Two hypotheses are tested: 1. An online multi-component brief alcohol intervention will encourage abstention and moderate drinking rates in 15 to 20 year-old binge drinkers 2. The inclusion of normative feedback will enhance the effectiveness of this web-based brief alcohol intervention
Ethics approval(s)	Not provided at time of registration
Health condition(s) or problem(s) studied	Alcohol abuse
Intervention	The web-based brief alcohol intervention, referred to as www.watdrinkjij.nl, was developed by professionals of the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction (Trimbos Instituut). The trial testing its effectiveness was financed by The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research (ZonMw), the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction (Trimbos Instituut) and Radboud University Nijmegen. Participants are randomly assigned to one of the two intervention conditions or a control condition (no intervention). In the intervention conditions, participants receive one of two versions of this web-based brief alcohol intervention, namely a version that does not include normative feedback or a version that does. Both versions of the web-based brief alcohol intervention contain two parts, i.e. a questionnaire with items addressing participants' drinking patterns, drinking motives, and health risk status, and personalised feedback based on participants answers to the earlier posed questions of the questionnaire including advice about moderate drinking. The advice for young adults aged 18 - 20 years is in line with the guidelines of the Dutch National Health Council recommending that men should not drink more than 2 glasses alcohol per day and women 1 glass alcohol per day (Dutch National Health Council, 2009). Adolescents under the age of 16 receive advice to abstain from alcohol. Adolescents aged 16 - 17 years are advised to abstain from alcohol and if they drink alcohol, they are recommended to drink moderately (not more than 1 or 2 glasses per occasion). The intervention duration is approximately 10 minutes. The feedback is tailored to participants age (under 16, 16 - 17 years of age, and 18+) and gender, and organised along four topics for the intervention-without normative feedback group, and five for the intervention-with normative feedback group. The following topics are addressed: 1. Personal drinking behaviour and related health risks 2. Drinking motives and suggestions to reduce alcohol use instigated by risk-conducive motives, such as drinking to forget problems, or to conform to peer pressure 3. Risk to develop problematic alcohol use or alcohol dependence 4. Personal perceptions about own alcohol use and related risks 5. Normative feedback The drink test with normative feedback provides additionally an overview of how much participants think their age-mates will drink, how much their age-mates actually drink and how much the participants drink themselves. This information is presented in a bar chart showing participants' own weekly alcohol use, the actual prevalence rates of Dutch adolescents' weekly alcohol use (matched according to participants' sex and age), and the prevalence rates of Dutch adolescents weekly alcohol use as estimated by participants. The data on peers' actual alcohol consumption levels are retrieved from alcohol prevalence estimates among same age-groups found in a nationally representative sample of high-school students (included in feedback for adolescents aged 15 - 17 years) and the general population (included in feedback for young adults aged 18 - 20 years). Only participants who overestimate their peers' alcohol consumption receive prevalence rates about their peers' actual alcohol use. If estimations are correct or lower than the actual prevalence rates, participants are informed that they provided the correct estimation.
Intervention type	Other
Primary outcome measure	1. Weekly alcohol consumption (number of glasses per week). This measure is assessed using the Dutch version of Weekly Recall. Participants are asked to indicate retrospectively for all past 7 days, how many standard units they consumed. For example: "Yesterday it was (fill out the name of the day) and I consumed standard units". To ensure standardised responses, we provide for various beverages an overview of standard units. 2. Moderate drinking (0 = moderate drinking, 1 = no moderate drinking). Participants aged 15 - 17 years are labeled 'moderate drinkers' if they consumed no alcohol in the past week. Boys in the ages between 18 to 20 years are regarded as moderate drinkers if they consumed less than 14 alcoholic drinks in the past week and same-aged girls are regarded as moderate drinkers if they consumed less than 7 alcoholic drinks in the past week.
Secondary outcome measures	No secondary outcome measures.
Overall study start date	01/09/2008
Completion date	01/03/2009

Eligibility

Participant type(s)	Patient
Age group	Child
Lower age limit	15 Years
Upper age limit	20 Years
Sex	Both
Target number of participants	600
Total final enrolment	575
Key inclusion criteria	1. Participants are members of an online access panel 2. In the ages between 15 and 20 years, either sex 3. Participants have to fulfill criteria regarding binge drinking. For 15 to 16 year-olds this means that they have to engage in binge drinking at least once a month. For 17 to 20 year-olds, it means engaging in binge drinking at least once a week.
Key exclusion criteria	1. Online panel members who are younger than 15 or older than 20 years old 2. Online panel members who do not meet our criteria for binge drinking
Date of first enrolment	01/09/2008
Date of final enrolment	01/03/2009

Locations

Countries of recruitment

Netherlands

Study participating centre

Montessorilaan 3

Nijmegen
6500 HE
Netherlands

Sponsor information

The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) (Netherlands)
Research organisation

Postbox 93 245
The Hague
2509 AE
Netherlands

Website	http://www.zonmw.nl/
"ROR"	https://ror.org/01yaj9a77

Funders

Funder type

Research organisation

The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) (Netherlands)

No information available

Results and Publications

Intention to publish date
Individual participant data (IPD) Intention to share	No
IPD sharing plan summary	Not provided at time of registration
Publication and dissemination plan	Not provided at time of registration
IPD sharing plan

Study outputs

Output type	Details	Date created	Date added	Peer reviewed?	Patient-facing?
Results article	results	19/12/2010	29/12/2020	Yes	No

Editorial Notes

29/12/2020: The following changes have been made:
1. Publication reference added.
2. The final enrolment number has been added from the reference.