title: United Kingdom Alcohol Treatment Trial (UKATT): hypotheses, design and methods.
abstract: The United Kingdom Alcohol Treatment Trial (UKATT) is intended to be the largest trial of treatment for alcohol problems ever conducted in the UK. UKATT is a multicentre, randomized, controlled trial with blind assessment, representing a collaboration between psychiatry, clinical psychology, biostatistics, and health economics. This article sets out, in advance of data analysis, the theoretical background of the trial and its hypotheses, design, and methods. A projected total of 720 clients attending specialist services for treatment of alcohol problems will be randomized to Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) or to Social Behaviour and Network Therapy (SBNT), a novel treatment developed for the trial with strong support from theory and research. The trial will test two main hypotheses, expressed in null form as: (1) less intensive, motivationally based treatment (MET) is as effective as more intensive, socially based treatment (SBNT); (2) more intensive, socially based treatment (SBNT) is as cost-effective as less intensive, motivationally based treatment (MET). A number of subsidiary hypotheses regarding client-treatment interactions and therapist effects will also be tested. The article describes general features of the trial that investigators considered desirable, namely that it should: (1) be a pragmatic, rather than an explanatory, trial; (2) be an effectiveness trial based on "real-world" conditions of treatment delivery; (3) incorporate high standards of training, supervision and quality control of treatment delivery; (4) pay close attention to treatment process as well as treatment outcome; (5) build economic evaluation into the design at the outset. First results from UKATT are expected in 2002 and the main results in 2003.
mesh_terms: D000437:Alcoholism / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D012931:Social Environment; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology