Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2014 Nov 19;9(11):e112553.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0112553. eCollection 2014.

Health on the web: randomised controlled trial of online screening and brief alcohol intervention delivered in a workplace setting

Zarnie Khadjesari  1 , Nick Freemantle  1 , Stuart Linke  2 , Rachael Hunter  1 , Elizabeth Murray  1
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Health on the web: randomised controlled trial of online screening and brief alcohol intervention delivered in a workplace setting

Zarnie Khadjesari et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: Alcohol misuse in England costs around £7.3 billion (US$12.2 billion) annually from lost productivity and absenteeism. Delivering brief alcohol interventions to employees as part of a health check may be acceptable, particularly with online delivery which can provide privacy for this stigmatised behaviour. Research to support this approach is limited and methodologically weak. The aim was to determine the effectiveness of online screening and personalised feedback on alcohol consumption, delivered in a workplace as part of a health check.

Methods and findings: This two-group online individually randomised controlled trial recruited employees from a UK-based private sector organisation (approx. 100,000 employees). 3,375 employees completed the online health check in the three week recruitment period. Of these, 1,330 (39%) scored five or more on the AUDIT-C (indicating alcohol misuse) and were randomised to receive personalised feedback on their alcohol intake, alongside feedback on other health behaviours (n = 659), or to receive feedback on all health behaviours except alcohol intake (n = 671). Participants were mostly male (75%), with a median age of 48 years and half were in managerial positions (55%). Median Body Mass Index was 26, 12% were smokers, median time undertaking moderate/vigorous physical activity a week was 173 minutes and median fruit and vegetable consumption was three portions a day. Eighty percent (n = 1,066) of participants completed follow-up questionnaires at three months. An intention to treat analysis found no difference between experimental groups for past week drinking (primary outcome) (5.6% increase associated with the intervention (95% CI -4.7% to 16.9%; p = .30)), AUDIT (measure of alcohol-related harm) and health utility (EQ-5D).

Conclusions: There was no evidence to support the use of personalised feedback within an online health check for reducing alcohol consumption among employees in this organisation. Further research is needed on how to engage a larger proportion of employees in screening.

Trial registration: International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register ISRCTN50658915.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Consort diagram.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Lim SS, Vos T, Flaxman AD, Danaei G, Shibuya K, et al. (2012) A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet 380 (9859): 2224–60. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Office for National Statistics. General Lifestyle Survey (GLS), 2011 [database on the Internet]. [cited March. 2013]
    1. National Audit Office (2008) Reducing alcohol harm: health services in England for alcohol misuse. London: The Stationary Office (TSO).
    1. Moyer A, Finney JW, Swearingen CE, Vergun P (2002) Brief interventions for alcohol problems: a meta-analytic review of controlled investigations in treatment-seeking and non-treatment-seeking populations. Addiction (Abingdon, England) 97 (3): 279–92. - PubMed
    1. Kaner EF, Beyer F, Dickinson HO, Pienaar E, Campbell F, et al. (2007) Effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions in primary care populations. Cochrane Database Syst Rev (2): CD004148. - PubMed

Publication types

Associated data