Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform

Background With the continuous improvement of people’s material living standards, the consumption of alcoholic beverages is increasing. Alcohol dependence caused by alcohol addiction has become a widespread concern in society. As the brand-new medical and health model created by the modern biomedica...

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Main Authors: Jing Chen, Mincai Qian, Conghao Sun, Min Lin, Weili Tang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMJ Publishing Group 2019-10-01
Series:General Psychiatry
Online Access:https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/32/5/e100087.full
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author Jing Chen
Mincai Qian
Conghao Sun
Min Lin
Weili Tang
author_facet Jing Chen
Mincai Qian
Conghao Sun
Min Lin
Weili Tang
author_sort Jing Chen
collection DOAJ
description Background With the continuous improvement of people’s material living standards, the consumption of alcoholic beverages is increasing. Alcohol dependence caused by alcohol addiction has become a widespread concern in society. As the brand-new medical and health model created by the modern biomedical technology revolution and the information technology revolution, mobile health has been used more and more widely in the field of medical health with the characteristics of convenience, rapidity and generalisability. With the general use of the social software WeChat, it is feasible to implement mobile health on the WeChat platform.Aim We aimed to explore the clinical effect of WeChat platform used in the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on the maintenance period of alcohol dependence and addiction.Methods Seventy alcohol-dependent patients in the withdrawal maintenance stage admitted into our hospital were randomly divided into the CBT on WeChat platform group (the experiment group, n=35) and the general clinical treatment using sertraline group (the control group, n=35) with block randomisation grouping. They were evaluated with the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SADQ-C) before the treatment, at the end of the fourth week, at the end of the eighth week and at the end of the twelfth week of treatment. In addition, Zung’s Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were employed to evaluate the degree of anxiety and depression of the two groups.Results The SADQ-C, SAS and SDS scores of the two groups after treatment decreased markedly compared with those before treatments, and the differences were statistically significant. Between-group comparison: the SADQ-C scores of the experiment group at the end of the fourth, eighth and twelfth weeks were lower than those of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant, which indicated that the score reduction in the experiment group was larger than that in the control group. The SAS and SDS scores of the experiment group at these time points were not significantly different from those of the control group, which indicated that these two treatment methods were comparable in treating patients’ anxiety and depression.Conclusion The CBT intervention using WeChat may improve the subjectively reported severity of alcohol dependence of patients who had completed detoxification. It is conducive to prevention of relapse, and is convenient for patients. It is worthy of clinical application and further study.
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spelling doaj-art-0ee376df2353402b82fee975ee1db85f2024-11-08T14:15:08ZengBMJ Publishing GroupGeneral Psychiatry2517-729X2019-10-0132510.1136/gpsych-2019-100087Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platformJing Chen0Mincai Qian1Conghao Sun2Min Lin3Weili Tang4Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai, ChinaThe Third People′s Hospital of Huzhou City, Huzhou, ChinaThe Third People′s Hospital of Huzhou City, Huzhou, ChinaThe Third People′s Hospital of Huzhou City, Huzhou, ChinaThe Third People′s Hospital of Huzhou City, Huzhou, ChinaBackground With the continuous improvement of people’s material living standards, the consumption of alcoholic beverages is increasing. Alcohol dependence caused by alcohol addiction has become a widespread concern in society. As the brand-new medical and health model created by the modern biomedical technology revolution and the information technology revolution, mobile health has been used more and more widely in the field of medical health with the characteristics of convenience, rapidity and generalisability. With the general use of the social software WeChat, it is feasible to implement mobile health on the WeChat platform.Aim We aimed to explore the clinical effect of WeChat platform used in the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) on the maintenance period of alcohol dependence and addiction.Methods Seventy alcohol-dependent patients in the withdrawal maintenance stage admitted into our hospital were randomly divided into the CBT on WeChat platform group (the experiment group, n=35) and the general clinical treatment using sertraline group (the control group, n=35) with block randomisation grouping. They were evaluated with the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SADQ-C) before the treatment, at the end of the fourth week, at the end of the eighth week and at the end of the twelfth week of treatment. In addition, Zung’s Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were employed to evaluate the degree of anxiety and depression of the two groups.Results The SADQ-C, SAS and SDS scores of the two groups after treatment decreased markedly compared with those before treatments, and the differences were statistically significant. Between-group comparison: the SADQ-C scores of the experiment group at the end of the fourth, eighth and twelfth weeks were lower than those of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant, which indicated that the score reduction in the experiment group was larger than that in the control group. The SAS and SDS scores of the experiment group at these time points were not significantly different from those of the control group, which indicated that these two treatment methods were comparable in treating patients’ anxiety and depression.Conclusion The CBT intervention using WeChat may improve the subjectively reported severity of alcohol dependence of patients who had completed detoxification. It is conducive to prevention of relapse, and is convenient for patients. It is worthy of clinical application and further study.https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/32/5/e100087.full
spellingShingle Jing Chen
Mincai Qian
Conghao Sun
Min Lin
Weili Tang
Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform
General Psychiatry
title Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform
title_full Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform
title_fullStr Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform
title_full_unstemmed Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform
title_short Clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol-dependent patients: an observation with the WeChat platform
title_sort clinical effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy on alcohol dependent patients an observation with the wechat platform
url https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/32/5/e100087.full
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