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The effects of treatment as usual supplemented with alcohol avoidance training on approach-avoidance bias and alcohol consumption in a double-blinded randomized control trial employed in an outpatient treatment setting

Weber, J. (2020) The effects of treatment as usual supplemented with alcohol avoidance training on approach-avoidance bias and alcohol consumption in a double-blinded randomized control trial employed in an outpatient treatment setting.

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Abstract:Background: Alcohol abuse is a severe problem in today’s society that can lead to a range of social, physical and psychological problems. Research suggest that addictive behaviour can partially be explained by implicit cognitions and that cognitive bias modification is effective in decreasing alcohol consumption by retraining approach biases into avoidance biases. Objective: The aim of the current study was to investigate whether or not treatment as usual supplemented with cognitive bias modification training would lead to a stronger decrease of alcohol consumption when being compared to treatment as usual supplemented with a placebo condition. Further, it was assessed whether the training had an effect on the avoidance bias scores and whether or not part of the effect of the training on alcohol consumption operated via the avoidance bias. Methods: The current study was a double-blinded randomized placebo-controlled study conducted online with an outpatient sample. Two datasets were used. The main dataset only included participants that took part in all pre and post-test (n=83). Additionally, another dataset was constructed with multiple imputations (n=139). Results: Results of both datasets were compared, and indicated that condition (training, placebo) had no effect on alcohol consumption. Further, no mediation effect was found. However, it was found that the training had an effect on avoidance bias scores. Participants in the training condition had a stronger avoidance bias after the training when compared with participants in the placebo condition. Conclusion: In contrast to previous studies, the current study did not find a significant effect of condition on alcohol consumption. However, previous studies have used inpatient samples. Therefore, future research should assess the different results of inpatient and outpatient samples.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/82304
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