Clinical trial NCT04461314: Hotline Service for Drug-abusing Youth and Young Adults
Official title: MedPAC Hotline: A Medical Peer Addiction Counselling Hotline Service for Drug-abusing Youth and Young Adults
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Drug Abuse
Keywords: Youth
Hotline
Drug abuse
Young Adult
Addiction
Lead sponsor: The University of Hong Kong
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-07-08
Enrollment: 200
Sex: ALL
Maximum age (years): 35
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: Aim: Providing peer counselling service delivered by student counsellors with a medical background via a hotline to drug-abusing youth and young adult aged 35 or below.

Objectives:

i. To raise anti-drug awareness of young people in general and identify high-risk/hidden drug-abusing youth and young adult aged 35 or below in Hong Kong; and ii. To train university students with a medical background as peer counsellors; and iii. To provide drug abuse hotline service by students with a medical background as peer counsellors to drug-abusing youth and young adult aged 35 or below, and other people who call for help, including drug abusers' family members, friends, and professionals; and iv. To improve the drug-abusing youth and young adult' knowledge about the hazard of drug abuse, negative attitude, and perception towards the drug abuse through the telephone peer counselling service provided by students with medical background; and v. To increase the intention to quit and the help-seeking behavior among the drug-abusing youth and young adult; vi. To increase reduction rate and abstinence rate from drug abuse, and decrease the relapse rate among drug-abusing youth and young adult through the telephone peer counseling service.

Detailed description: The MedPAC Hotline Service will be promoted to high-risk and drug-abusing youth and young adults through a variety of platforms, namely schools and youth service organizations, industries, community, mass media and internet, social media, posters and snowball approach.

The hotline service will operate from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekday and from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekend. A peer counsellor or a research assistant will answer the telephone inquiries from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

About 50 university students will be trained as peer counsellors through a structured training programme. The students will be invited to complete the pre, post and 6-month self-administered questionnaire before, immediately and 6-month after the training programme to examine their changes of knowledge of and attitudes towards addiction counselling. A satisfaction survey will also be conducted to measure their perception on the quality of training programme.

Peer counsellors will use telephone-based, Peer-led Brief Motivational Interviewing (BMI) counselling to motivate and encourage drug-abusing or high-risk youth and young adults to rehabilitate from drug abuse, assist them to manage the withdrawal symptoms, and help identify barriers and facilitators to rehabilitate from drug abuse in the telephone counselling. The peer counsellors will give referral advices if the youth and young adult needs appropriated treatment and rehabilitation services.

The drug-abusing youth and young adults will be counselled and invited to complete the follow-up questionnaires over the telephone after joining the MedPAC Hotline Service programme for 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 1 year. Self-reported quitters at 6-month and 1-year follow-ups were invited to have urine test to validate the drug abuse abstinence status.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* The inclusion criteria of target service group for this quitline programme is that current drug abusers in Hong Kong who should (1) be aged 35 or below, (2) be able to communicate in Cantonese, and (3) have a history of drug abuse within the past 12 months (including all types of drugs such as narcotics analgesics, hallucinogens, depressants, stimulants, tranquillizers and other recreational drugs).
* The inclusion criteria of peer counsellors providing counselling service in this quitline programme are those who should (1) be aged 18 - 35, (2) be able to communicate in Cantonese, (3) have a medical background, (4) complete the training courses and pass the evaluation of peer counsellor qualification.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Those who are psychologically or physically unable to communicate will be excluded.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in drug consumption at 12-month follow-up
timeFrame: Baseline and 12 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: 30 days self-reported drug abstinence at 6-month and 12-month follow-up
timeFrame: Baseline, 6 months and 12 months
measure: Change in drug consumption at 6-month follow-up
timeFrame: Baseline and 6 months
measure: Change in relapse risk among the quitters
timeFrame: Baseline and 12 months
measure: Change of the contemplation stage
timeFrame: Baseline, 6 months and 12 months
measure: Changes of the perceived treatment needs and motivation towards solving the problem of drug abuse
timeFrame: Baseline, 6 months and 12 months
measure: Change of self-efficacy of drug abusers to avoid drug use
timeFrame: Baseline, 6 months and 12 months
measure: Drug abuser's improvement of knowledge and attitude on drug abuse hazards
timeFrame: Baseline, 6 months and 12 months
measure: Peer counsellor's improvement of knowledge and attitude on drug abuse hazards
timeFrame: Baseline, immediately after the training programme and 6 months
measure: Satisfaction of peer counsellors to the drug abuse training programme
timeFrame: Immediately after the training programme
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: The University of Hong Kong
state: Pokfulam
Study officials:
affiliation: The University of Hong Kong
name: Ho Cheung William Li, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Xia W, Li HCW, Liang T, Luo Y, Ho LLK, Cheung AT, Song P. Structured online training for university students to deliver peer-led addiction counselling for young drug abusers in China: Effect on improving knowledge, attitude, confidence, and skills. Patient Educ Couns. 2022 Apr;105(4):1009-1017. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2021.07.038. Epub 2021 Jul 24.