Patients with AUD demonstrate engagement, abstinence in digital therapeutic treatment
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Individuals with alcohol use disorder showed consistent engagement with a prescription digital therapeutic and displayed a high level of abstinence, per a poster presented at the American Association of Addiction Psychiatry annual meeting.
“Alcohol use disorder currently affects about 28 million people in the United States, with approximately 140,000 people dying each year from alcohol-related causes,” Yuri Maricich, MD, MBA, chief medical officer of Pear Therapeutics, a digital health company, said in a release that accompanied the study. “However, barriers to evidence-based AUD treatments exist, including lack of trained clinicians, access to specialty facilities and patient attrition.”
A recent study found that those with alcohol use disorder were more likely to adhere to treatment and abstain from alcohol treated with a novel prescription digital therapeutic. Source: Adobe Stock
Researchers sought to assess engagement and abstinence outcomes in a real-world population of patients with evidence of AUD and treated with reSET – a prescription digital therapeutic that combined cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational incentives for abstinence and program completion.
An observational study included 548 individuals (median age, 42 years; 49% male) with substance use disorder from 28 U.S. states who were prescribed reSET and whose enrollment forms included ICD-10 codes indicated a primary diagnosis of AUD.
Participants were treated for 12 weeks with reSET, which comprised 61 therapy lessons with 4 lessons per week recommended. Patients were eligible for CM rewards (positive reinforcement messages or monetary gift cards) based on lesson completion (up to 4 per week) and clinician entered negative urine drug screens (UDSs). The primary endpoint for the study was any type of engagement with the device throughout the course of the prescription, with retention defined as engagement in weeks 9 through 12. The secondary endpoint was abstinence (UDS or self-report) in weeks 9 through 12.
Results showed that retention in treatment during the last 4 weeks was 69.7%. An analysis of PDT usage events by time-of-day showed that use occurred throughout the 24-hour period. During weeks 9 through 12, 59% of participants abstained from substance use confirmed through a combination of self-reporting and drug testing. Patients with no data during this interval were considered positive for substance use.
“This real-world observational study of reSET in widely varying practice settings shows that patients readily engaged with the PDT and that engagement was positively associated with abstinence and treatment retention,” Mariya Petrova, PhD, clinical director of Pear Therapeutics and lead author of the study, and colleagues wrote. “Though further controlled trials dedicated to this AUD population are warranted, these real-world data augment existing RCTs and suggest the potential benefit of this new form of treatment in AUD.”
Reference:
- Pear Therapeutics. Pear Therapeutics presents real-world clinical data assessing engagement and abstinence in patients with alcohol use disorders Using reSET at AAAP. Accessed Dec. 19, 2022.