This study is looking to see if AlcoChange (a smartphone app with an optional breathalyser) can help patients with alcohol-related liver disease (ArLD) abstain from, or reduce, alcohol use.

Deaths from liver disease in the UK are rising at an alarming rate, with an increase of 400% since 1970. This is mainly due to more people drinking and drinking more heavily. Alcohol-related harm costs the NHS more than £3.5 billion each year. Urgent action is needed to deal with liver-related deaths.

In hospitals, Alcohol Care Teams (ACTs) work to help high-risk patients with liver disease to abstain from consuming alcohol. However, increasing numbers of patients year-on-year mean ACTs cannot review every patient. AlcoChange is a smartphone app with an optional breathalyser (breath alcohol meter) that allows people to monitor their alcohol use themselves. The app also provides motivational messages to encourage people to stay sober.

Click here for more information about the AlcoChange app and breathalyser

AlcoChange has already been shown to have positive benefits in an initial study carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in London but needs to be tested in a much larger trial with a greater number of hospitals and patients.

Our study will see if AlcoChange can help patients with liver disease stop, or reduce, their alcohol consumption. This could help reduce the number of hospital admissions and deaths associated with alcohol-related liver disease.

Patients who take part in the study will either continue to receive their usual care only, or they will receive their usual care plus the AlcoChange app and breathalyser. Both groups will attend two study clinic visits over 6 months and will complete one telephone questionnaire with a member of the study team, as shown in the figure below.

This study is being coordinated by the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit (SCTU). It is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Invention for Innovation (i4i) Programme and the Sponsor is the University of Southampton.

Contact

For all trial related queries: [email protected]