Automated Telephone Follow-up in the Swedish Prison and Probation Services

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The purpose of this study is to investigate whether automated telephony may be used for daily assessments of paroled offenders, and whether a brief intervention based on these daily assessments may result in a more positive development compared to daily assessments only.

Detailed Description
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To study whether automated telephony could be used in paroled offenders to perform daily assessment of variables associated with recidivism in crime and to study the effects of a brief intervention based on these assessments during 30 days following probation.

Official Title
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Automated Telephone Follow-up in the Swedish Prison and Probation Services. A Randomized Controlled Trail.

Conditions
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Affect, Alcohol Consumption, Substance Abuse

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Brief feedback
* Behavioral: Daily assessments


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Convicted criminals subject to parole Access to a mobile telephone Assigned parole officer at parole Exclusion Criteria: No knowledge of spoken Swedish Additional intervention such as intensive supervision with electronic monitoring, or in-patient care at a health and rehabilitation clinic
Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Daily Assessments & Brief Feedback<br>Daily assessments during 30 days after parole and a feedback intervention based on these daily assessments. | Behavioral: Brief feedback<br>* A brief feedback was given on the results of the daily assessments, including a recommendation to the paroled offender and a email report was sent to the probation officer.<br>Behavioral: Daily assessments<br>* Daily assessment of stress, mental symptoms, alcohol and substance use during 30 consecutive days after parole.<br>|
| Active Comparator: Daily assessments<br>Daily assessments during 30 days after parole. | Behavioral: Daily assessments<br>* Daily assessment of stress, mental symptoms, alcohol and substance use during 30 consecutive days after parole.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mental symptoms, SCL-8D | Mental Symptoms, assessed with SCL-8D (Fink et al. A Nordic multicentre investigation. Part I: Method and prevalence of psychiatric morbidity. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 1995;92(6):409-418). | During 30 days after probation | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stress | Stress assessed with the Arnetz and hasson stress questionnaire(Andersson C et al. Measurement properties of the Arnetz and Hasson stress questionnaire in Swedish university freshmen. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 2009;37(3):273-279) | During 30 days after probation | 
| Stress | Daily Assessment of Daily Experience (Stone AA, Neale JM. Development of a methodology for assessing daily experiences. In: Baum A, Singer J, eds. Advances in Environmental Psychology: Environment and Health. Vol 4. New York: Erlbaum; 1982:49-83). | During 30 days after probation | 
| Desire to use alcohol and drugs | Desire to use alcohol and drugs (Bohn MJ, Krahn DD, Staehler BA. Development and initial validation of a measure of drinking urges in abstinent alcoholics. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 1995;19(3):600-606). | During 30 days after probation | 
| Current use of alcohol and drugs | Current use was then assessed by simply asking whether the offender had drunk alcohol or used any drugs the previous day. | During 30 days after probation | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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Paroled offenders, Interactive Voice Response, Stress, Mental symptoms, Alcohol consumption, Substance use