Digital intervention for alcohol reduction, the Drink Less app

The Drink Less app was developed and evaluated in response to a need for a theory- and evidence-based app to support people trying to reduce their alcohol consumption.  

Team: Claire Garnett, Jamie Brown, Melissa Oldham, Gemma Loebenberg, Larisa Dinu, Susan Michie, Colin Angus, Emma Beard, Robyn Burton, Matt Field, Felix Greaves, Matthew Hickman, Eileen Kaner, Marcus Munafò, Olga Perski, Elena Pizzo, Dave Crane, Robert West. 

Overview: The Drink Less app was developed, refined and evaluated over the past decade, and is the first alcohol reduction app for the general population of drinkers in the UK to report a systematic and transparent approach to its development and refinement. It was launched on the Apple app store in May 2016 and a large evaluation of its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness was run from 2020 to 2023 with 5,602 participants. The evaluation found that among increasing and higher risk drinkers in the UK, Drink Less is effective at reducing weekly alcohol consumption by an additional two units compared with usual digital care. This provides evidence to support investment into promoting the Drink Less app to increasing and higher risk drinkers in the UK. 

Outputs: The app is freely available on iOS devices and can be downloaded here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/drink-less/id1020579244  

Development paper: https://academic.oup.com/tbm/article/9/2/296/4992624  

Refinement paper: https://f1000research.com/articles/10-511/v2  

Evaluation paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537024001135 

Funding: The development, refinement and evaluation have been funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research School for Public Health Research (NIHR SPHR), the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies (UKCTAS), the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) and NIHR.