An Electronic Brief Intervention to Reduce Alcohol Consumption Intentions, Improve Alcohol Literacy, and Reduce Harmful Use Among Women Attending a Breast Screening Service: a Randomised Controlled Trial
An Electronic Brief Intervention to Reduce Alcohol Consumption Intentions, Improve Alcohol Literacy, and Reduce Harmful Use Among Women Attending a Breast Screening Service: a Randomised Controlled Trial
Alcohol is a major modifiable risk factor for female breast cancer; yet, awareness of this risk remains surprisingly low and is not systematically addressed in healthcare settings. This study aim to test the effectiveness of a co-designed, automated brief alcohol intervention (Health4Her-Automated) in reducing women's drinking intentions, improving alcohol literacy, and reducing consumption.
Alcohol is a major modifiable risk factor for female breast cancer, even in very low amounts. In Australia, alcohol consumption accounts for 6.6 per cent of cases in post-menopausal women, and 18 per cent of breast cancer deaths. Yet, awareness of this risk remains low and is not systematically addressed in healthcare settings. Embedding a brief alcohol intervention within lifestyle information offered to all women attending breast screening provides the opportunity to address harmful drinking in a discrete, non-judgmental way, to prevent alcohol-attributable breast cancer among this at-risk population.
Brief alcohol interventions are short, single-session programs typically offered in general practice settings to gather information on a person's alcohol consumption and, in a non confrontational way, provide strategies and motivate change to reduce consumption and related risk of harm. An automated brief alcohol intervention, self-completed on a device such as an iPad, is a low-cost, labour- and time-efficient approach that overcomes many of the issues of providing intervention within busy healthcare environments.
Building on the previous pilot trial of a prototype brief e-health intervention (which included alcohol-related questions asked by a researcher, and an animation viewed on an iPad that was activated by the researcher), the aim of the current study is to test the effectiveness of a co-designed, automated brief alcohol intervention (Health4Her-Automated) in reducing women's drinking intentions, improving alcohol literacy, and reducing consumption.
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