title: Alcohol email assessment and feedback study dismantling effectiveness for university students (AMADEUS-1): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alcohol causes huge problems for population health and for society, which require interventions with individuals as well as populations to prevent and reduce harms. Brief interventions can be effective and increasingly take advantage of the internet to reach high-risk groups such as students. The research literature on the effectiveness of online interventions is developing rapidly and is confronted by methodological challenges common to other areas of e-health including attrition and assessment reactivity and in the design of control conditions.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief online intervention, employing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design that takes account of baseline assessment reactivity, and other possible effects of the research process. Outcomes will be evaluated after 3 months both among student populations as a whole including for a randomized no contact control group and among those who are risky drinkers randomized to brief assessment and feedback (routine practice) or to brief assessment only. A three-arm parallel groups trial will also allow exploration of the magnitude of the feedback and assessment component effects. The trial will be undertaken simultaneously in 2 universities randomizing approximately 15,300 students who will all be blinded to trial participation. All participants will be offered routine practice intervention at the end of the study.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This trial informs the development of routine service delivery in Swedish universities and more broadly contributes a new approach to the study of the effectiveness of online interventions in student populations, with relevance to behaviors other than alcohol consumption. The use of blinding and deception in this study raise ethical issues that warrant further attention.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  ISRCTN28328154.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Public Health & Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SH, UK. Jim.McCambridge@lshtm.ac.uk
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McCambridge
authors.forename: Preben
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bendtsen
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bendtsen
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nilsen
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D008192:Deception; D034742:Electronic Mail; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D018579:Patient Selection; D011314:Preventive Health Services; D012107:Research Design; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013333:Student Health Services; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome