The dearth of addiction treatment outcome evaluation studies often places health care providers in the difficult position of deciding between withholding treatment or providing well-intentioned, but unproven treatment. Furthermore, the existing well-supported addiction treatment options might be ineffective for some treatment seekers because of a conflict with personal idiosyncrasies and a mismatch with the processes and stages of addiction development and recovery (Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992; Shaffer, 1997). To advance our ability to effectively treat different expressions of addiction, researchers and practitioners must generate more empirically validated treatment options. The proposed research seeks support to conduct an evaluation of a newly developed problem gambling self-assessment/self-change intervention titled. """"""""Your First Step to Change."""""""" This toolkit contains facts and information about gambling, self assessment and self- change strategies, as well as local and global problem gambling resources. The toolkit targets individuals who are at-risk for or currently experiencing gambling-related problems and are concerned about their gambling and interested in change. We will assign randomly each of 180 participants to one of three groups (i.e., toolkit, guided toolkit, delayed intervention) and assess the participants' changes in beliefs, behaviors, and behavioral intentions over a 3 month follow-up. We will produce a comprehensive technical report of the study outcomes as well as peer-reviewed publications. We will disseminate these products on the Harvard Medical School, Division on Addictions' website. This project will build our evidence base, methods, and materials for a larger (i.e., R01) research proposal that will investigate offline and online versions of this toolkit and other toolkits (i.e., alcohol and tobacco) currently in development. ? ? ?
| Labrie, Richard A; Peller, Allyson J; Laplante, Debi A et al. (2012) A brief self-help toolkit intervention for gambling problems: a randomized multisite trial. Am J Orthopsychiatry 82:278-89 |
