alcohol consumption queries each Sunday, but did not receive any feedback. Members of a third control group did not receive or send text messages throughout the study period.
The researchers then analyzed the three groups for their self-reported number of binge drinking days, the number of drinks per drinking day in the prior 30 days, the proportion of participants with weekend binge episodes and most drinks consumed per drinking episode during the 12 weekends of the study period.
Patients using the complete system experienced a 14% drop in the number of binge drinking days per month and an 8% reduction in the number of drinks when they did go out, according to the research data. Meanwhile, high risk behavior increased in the other two groups.
Researchers found for the group receiving both text messages and feedback, there was a reduction in the number of binge drinking days per month, from 3.7 days at baseline to 3.1 days during the study period. In contrast, the number of binge drinking days per month rose for the group receiving messages alone, from 3.3 days to 4.2 days, and for the control group, from 3.2 days to 3.6.
The researchers also found for the group receiving both text messages and feedback there were decreases in the number of drinks per binge drinking day, from a baseline of 3.8 drinks to 3.5. In contrast, there was an increase for groups receiving messages alone from four drinks per drinking day to 4.2, and for the control group, from 3.6 drinks to four.
Armed with these results, the next stage is to try to implement the program at UPMC and possibly attract a business or organization to commercialize it, said study lead author Dr. Brian Suffoletto, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School and an emergency room physician at UPMC's Mercy Hospital
“We can scale this nationally at very little cost,” he said.
He conceived of the project six years ago after reading an article in the Archives of Dermatology about a text-based messaging project encouraging people to use sun block.
Suffoletto wondered whether a similar program might address the problem of binge drinking among young adults. Working with Jack Dorman, director of academic computing at UPMC-affiliated Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, he created a software package that includes using natural language processing in the interactive response portion of the program.Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn