Examining Changes in Quality of Life as an Outcome Measure in Three Randomized Controlled Trials of Online Interventions That Included an Intervention for Hazardous Alcohol Use

Abstract

Background

Quality of life (QOL) summarizes an individual’s perceived satisfaction across multiple life domains. Many factors can impact this measure, but research has demonstrated that individuals with addictions, physical, and mental health concerns tend to score lower than general population samples. While QOL is often important to individuals, it is rarely used by researchers as an outcome measure when evaluating treatment efficacy.

Methods

This secondary analysis used data collected during three separate randomized controlled trials testing the efficacy of different online interventions to explore change in QOL over time between treatment conditions. The first project was concerned with only alcohol interventions. The other two combined either a gambling or mental health intervention with a brief alcohol intervention. Males and females were analyzed separately.

Results

This analysis found treatment effects among female participants in two projects. In the project only concerning alcohol, female quality of life improved more among those who received an extensive intervention for hazardous alcohol use compared to a brief intervention (p = .029). QOL among females who received only the mental health intervention improved more than those who also received a brief alcohol intervention (p = .049).

Conclusion

Poor QOL is often cited as a reason individuals decide to make behavior changes, yet treatment evaluations do not typically consider this patient-important outcome. This analysis found some support for different treatment effects on QOL scores in studies involving at least one intervention for hazardous alcohol use.

Keywords:

• Quality of life
• QOL
• addictions
• alcohol use
• online interventions
• outcomes

Acknowledgements

John Cunningham is currently supported by the Nat & Loretta Rothschild Chair in Addictions Treatment & Recovery Studies. Support to CAMH for salary and infrastructure has been provided by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The Alcohol Only study (MOP-125942) and the Mental Health + Alcohol project (PJT-153324) were each funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Gambling + Alcohol (MGRP-FR-16-1-11) was funded by the Manitoba Gaming Research Program of Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries. A Canada Research Chair award to John Cunningham provided additional support. The funders did not have input regarding the design of the study, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data or in writing the manuscript.