Alcohol-related changes in behaviors and characteristics from the baseline to the randomization session for treatment and non-treatment seeking participants with alcohol use disorder

ABSTRACT

Background

Participants who are enrolled in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) may be more motivated to change their behaviors after being enrolled in a study and that motivation may vary by treatment status.

Objectives

The objectives of this secondary analysis were to investigate if changes in alcohol-related behaviors/characteristics from the baseline to the randomization session differed overall and to assess those differences between non-treatment and treatment seeking individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD).

Methods

Our sample included participants from eight RCTs conducted at Brown University (N = 281, 34% female). To assess differences across alcohol-related behaviors/characteristics, we investigated changes in craving (obsessive compulsive drinking scale) and alcohol drinking (percent abstinent days, drinks per week (DPW) and percent heavy drinking days (HDD)) overall and between treatment status.

Results

Results showed that there were baseline differences, such as increased AUD severity and craving for alcohol in treatment seeking participants (p’s < .05) in the overall sample. Next, we showed that craving, DPW and HDD decreased and percent abstinent days increased from baseline to randomization (p’s < .05). When controlling for treatment status and sociodemographic characteristics, treatment seeking, compared to non-treatment seeking participants, had a greater reduction in alcohol craving (p < .001) and a greater increase in percentage of drinking days (p < .01).

Conclusions

These findings demonstrated that alcohol-related behaviors and characteristics changed after enrollment. Severity, craving and drinking behaviors also differed between treatment-seeking status, which can potentially impact medication development stages for AUD such as clinical trial eligibility, enrollment and study outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Treatment seekers
• non-treatment seekers
• alcohol use disorder
• baseline
• randomization
• session
• motivation

Disclosure Statement

The author reports no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

Dr. Goodyear is supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA; K01 AA026874). Dr. Leggio is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program and the NIAAA Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research (ZIA DA000635 and ZIA-AA000218, Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section; PI: Leggio). Dr. Haass-Koffler is supported by NIAAA (K01 AA023867; R01 AA026589; R01 AA027760; R21 AA027614) and by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE, P20 GM130414; PI: Monti). The parent studies were funded by the ABMRF/The Foundation for Alcohol Research (ISRCTN62137064; PI: Leggio) and NIAAA (R03AA020169; PI: Leggio, R21 AA019994, PI: Leggio, then Kenna; R21 AA021128, PI: Leggio, then Kenna; R01 AA027760, PI: Haass-Koffler; R01 AA016079, PI: Kenna; R21 AA019709, PI: Leggio, then Kenna; R01 AA015753, PI: Swift; K01AA023867, PI: Haass-Koffler).