Ownership of mobile technologies by substance misuse patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Ownership of mobile technologies by substance misuse patients in the UK: A feasibility study
IRAS ID
144564
Contact name
Joanna Milward
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Research summary
This study will examine how many people in a sample of patients receiving treatment for substance abuse own and use a mobile phone and will investigate how long these patients retain the same mobile phone number for.
This data will allow us to determine whether using mobile phones in addiction services is a feasible method for supporting addictions treatment in the future.
Adults over 18 who are receiving substance abuse treatment and who can read and speak English will be included in this study.
Participants will be recruited from 6 outpatient substance misuse services in Birmingham and Solihull NHS Trust.
The study will be conducted in two phases. Firstly participants will complete a self-administered questionnaire surveying their access and use of mobile technologies. This should take no longer than 10 minutes. On the questionnaire, participants will be invited to take part in the second phase of the study. In the second phase participants will be allocated into 1 of 3 groups, each group will receive a different number of text messages each month. Group 1 will receive a message once per week, group 2 a text message twice per week and group 3 a text message once per month.
The text message will read “Please respond to this message by replying YES”.At the end of the three months all participants will be contacted and asked to complete an exit interview which will ask them about their experiences of participating in the study.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/0076
Date of REC Opinion
14 Feb 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion