E-Health Interventions for Alcohol Use Problems

E-health interventions are those that use the internet, mobile phones, or computers to deliver intervention materials.¹ Most take a similar approach to in-person Brief Interventions and include some form of screening and personalised feedback. Although some components of Brief Interventions are difficult to translate to a digital platform (e.g., empathy), brief e-health interventions contain similar behaviour change techniques (‘active ingredients’) and the most common techniques used are feedback about drinking, social comparisons to encourage changes in alcohol use in line with low-risk levels, information and feedback about consequences, motivational enhancement and personal capacity for change. To date, most brief e-health interventions for alcohol use problems have used online computer-based interventions and have been fully automated (i.e., no clinician input). In contrast, despite the promise of mobile applications, there is less evidence supporting their effectiveness.

¹this definition is similar to the World Health Organization’s: “the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for health"