NCT04938258: MALUA_Freq_P

Feasibility and Potential Effectiveness of a Case Management Intervention for Alcohol Use-Related Problems in Frequent Users of an Emergency Department: a Pilot Study

Terminated NA Last updated 28 September 2023

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Intensive Case Management in Alcohol Drinking in 5 participants. Terminated before completion.

Timeline

23 June 2021

Primary endpoint
31 January 2023

31 January 2023

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Hospital Clinic of Barcelona
Phase	NA
Status	Terminated
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	na
Design	single group
Masking	none
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	5
Start date	23 June 2021
Primary completion	31 January 2023
Estimated completion	31 January 2023
Sites	1 location across Spain

Drugs / interventions tested

• Intensive Case Management

Conditions studied

• Alcohol Drinking — all drugs for Alcohol Drinking →
• Alcohol-Related Disorders — all drugs for Alcohol-Related Disorders →

Sponsor

Hospital Clinic of Barcelona

Who can join

Adults 18 to 65, any sex, with Alcohol Drinking or Alcohol-Related Disorders. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Alcohol use and its consequences represent an important public health problem. As well as alcohol dependence, hazardous drinking also contributes to a high burden in terms of morbidity and mortality. To improve these patients' prognosis and decrease associated social and health care costs, it is necessary to increase early detection, intervention and treatment for these problems. Alcohol consumption is associated with a decrease in primary care services utilization, thus Emergency Departments (EDs) are a primary gateway to healthcare services in this group.

Depending on the investigative method and the mixture of the target population, an estimated 0.6-40% of all ED visits are due to alcohol-related problems. Given this, EDs offer a unique window of opportunity to address alcohol problems.

The threshold most commonly used to define frequent use of EDs is more than 4 visits per year. Frequent users comprise 0.3% to 10% of all ED patients and account for 3.5% to 28% of ED visits in developed countries. Addictive and other psychiatric disorders, and also social vulnerability are more common in frequent ED users than in non-frequent users. Although case management interventions seem promising to reduce ED attendance among frequent users, currently there is mixed evidence on the effects of such interventions on ED use.

Considering all this, a broader understanding of interventions to reduce frequent visits is needed, specially focusing on local frequent ED populations and identified highly vulnerable subgroups, such as hazardous drinkers.

The investigators aim to evaluate the feasibility and potential effectiveness of a Case Management programme for ED Frequent Users presenting risky alcohol use in the ED of a tertiary hospital.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial.