Supporting drug users in recovery is a crucial task in any society. However, as there is a stigma associated with drug addiction, many drug users may appreciate self-directed tools that they can use on their own. One study examined the use of such a program for recovering addicts in China (Liang et al., 2018). This article will briefly present the methods used in that study as well as its findings.
Methods
The population in this study consisted of 75 people recruited from methadone clinics and from a network of social workers in China. All of these people had used heroin in the past 30 days. Fifty of the participants were assigned into the intervention group and 25 were assigned into the control group. All participants downloaded the same application (S-Health), and all participants received text messages from the app throughout the four-week study period. The participants in the control group did not receive anything else.
Along with the text messages, participants in the intervention group also received surveys from the app which they were expected to complete daily. These surveys asked about the following:
- Cravings
- Affect, as assessed by the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short-form (I-PANAS-SF)
- Trigger thoughts, places, and situations
- Responses to triggers
- Social context
The I-PANAS-SF was also administered at baseline to categorize participants into either the positive emotional group or the negative emotional group, to send text messages tailored specifically for each group.
In addition, face-to-face interviews and urine tests were administered at baseline as well as at the end of each week throughout the four-week study period:
- The interviews focused on the following:
- Timeline follow-back (TLFB), in which participants were asked about their primary drug, their drug use, and life events that they had experienced since they first started using drugs
- Addiction Severity Index (ASI), which was used to assess “problem severity” in alcohol use, drug use, employment, family and social relationships, legal, psychological, and medical status.
- The urine tests assessed the use of any of morphine, methamphetamine, ketamine, MDMA, and marijuana.
Finally, at the end of the four-week study period, participants in the intervention group were asked to assess the app for usability.
Results
The following results were obtained:
- The mean number of surveys answered over the four-week period was 13.8, indicating that the average participant filled out a survey every other day.
- The urine test results at the end of each week were similar between the intervention and control groups, but the intervention group reported significantly fewer days of using their primary drug in each week.
- The majority of participants in the intervention group reported that the surveys were easy to complete.
- More participants preferred the phone-based surveys to the in-person interviews.
In other words, the intervention slightly reduced drug use in participants in the intervention group.
Wrapping up
Ultimately, the intervention had a small but significant effect. More importantly, the participants reported that phone-based surveys like the ones used in the study are preferable to in-person interviews. This indicates that a phone-based intervention can be more effective for populations like the one in this study than other interventions, and related research should therefore continue to be conducted.
References
Liang, D., Han, H., Du, J., Zhao, M., Hser, Y. (2018). A Pilot Study of a Smartphone Application Supporting Recovery From Drug Addiction. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 88(1), 51-58. doi: 10.1016/j.jsat.2018.02.006.
