Men across Scotland are to be texted while they tipple by Dundee University researchers in a bid to make them think about their drinking habits.
The major study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research (NIHR PHR) Programme, follows a successful feasibility study carried out in Tayside.
In the full study, researchers hope to recruit around 700 men aged between 25 and 44 across the Tayside, Fife, Forth Valley and Greater Glasgow areas.
“We are hoping to work with men who have settled into a drinking pattern where they will have consumed more than eight units of alcohol on two occasions in the previous month,” said Professor Iain Crombie, of the Centre for Biomedical Sciences and Public Health at Dundee University.
“The standard definition of binge drinking is eight units in a session.
“The basic idea is not to preach to them or tell them what they do.
“Many alcohol interventions are very ‘in your face’ and we don’t see that as the way to go.
“What the messaging in this study will do is encourage them to think about what they are drinking, why they do it and about how it fits with the rest of their lives.
“Text messaging is an attractive medium to use to deliver those messages.
“There is evidence that it can be effective, and our study will robustly test that.”
Men who join the study would receive regular text messages for three months, following which there will be a phone interview to assess whether there has been any immediate change in behaviour. They will be asked again after a further nine months whether there has been any longer-term change in behaviour.
Letters of invitation to join the study will be sent out from GP practices while the study team will also be going out into the community to recruit volunteers.
Professor Crombie said new ways of approaching Scotland’s well documented alcohol problems were needed.
“There have been many initiatives over decades aimed at changing our drinking culture but it still persists to a large degree. As new technology becomes widely adopted we must see if we can use it to come up with better ways of working with people.”