# CBT by Phone to Promote Use of Alcohol Related Care and Reduce Drinking

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER · 2020 · $120,012

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract – Parent Award
Obtaining alcohol specialty care for alcohol use disorder (AUD) is associated with improved drinking outcomes
and recovery, yet a small percentage of individuals with AUD obtain treatment. Use of Screening, Brief
Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) interventions is a potential strategy to increase treatment
seeking, yet there is little evidence that these interventions increase participation in alcohol-related care and
meager evidence that such care serves as a mechanism for improved drinking outcomes. The current
randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment Engagement (CBT-TE), a one
session intervention delivered by telephone, seeks to address these gaps in evidence. The specific aims are
to show that treatment naïve research volunteers ages 18 and older with AUD who are assigned to CBT-TE
compared to an information control condition are more likely to initiate alcohol specialty care (aim 1), have
decreased frequency of alcohol use (as measured by percent days abstinent) and intensity of alcohol use (as
measured by drinks per drinking day) (aim 2), and that use of treatment serves as a mediator of the improved
drinking outcomes (aim 3). Innovations of CBT-TE include that it is based on the theory of planned behavior
and cognitive behavioral treatment principles, was developed for phone administration from the onset, and was
explicitly designed to promote treatment engagement. The project is in response to PA-18-194, Alcohol Use
Disorders: Behavioral Treatment, Services, and Recovery Research. It builds on a smaller efficacy trial that
showed that the intervention leads to increased engagement in alcohol-related care (Stecker et al., 2012) and
extends that study in several ways including plans to determine efficacy of the intervention to improve drinking
outcomes and that treatment engagement serves as a mediator of the improved outcomes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10152971
- **Project number:** 3R01AA026815-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
- **Principal Investigator:** KENNETH R CONNER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $120,012
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-01 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10152971

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10152971, CBT by Phone to Promote Use of Alcohol Related Care and Reduce Drinking (3R01AA026815-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10152971. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*