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Brief Family Involved Treatment Telehealth

Evaluating the Efficacy of Telehealth-Delivered Brief Family Involved Treatment (B-FIT) for Alcohol Use Disorder Among Veterans

Who can join

Ages 21 and older · All sexes

Inclusion Criteria:

* Participants will be 200 Veterans and a family member, plus their treatment companion, a concerned partner or friend (total N=400; 50% women veterans) aged 21 or older.

Inclusion criteria for Veterans require that they:

1. Meet diagnostic criteria for current moderate to severe alcohol use disorder (AUD) with 2 or more heavy drinking days (\>5 for men, \>4 for women) in the 60 days prior to enrollment
2. Have an adult family member/treatment companion who is willing to participate
3. Demonstrate cognitive functioning sufficient to provide informed consent and participate accurately (≥ 26 on the Mini-Mental Status Exam \[MMSE\])
4. Maintain a stable dose of psychotropic medications for at least 4 weeks before enrollment. Concurrent drug use disorders are acceptable provided alcohol is the Veteran's primary substance of choice. Drug use will be measured weekly and controlled for in statistical analyses if needed.

Inclusion criteria for the family member/treatment companion require that they:

1. Are not receiving or seeking treatment for their own alcohol or drug problem
2. Report total Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores \<8
3. Report total Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10) scores \<3.

Exclusion Criteria:

Exclusion criteria for all participants include:

1. History of or current psychotic or bipolar disorder
2. Alcohol withdrawal (Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol-Revised (CIWA-Ar) score \>8)
3. Current suicidal or homicidal ideation and intent
4. Severe or unilateral violence in the past 6 months as measured by the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2) (consistent with extant dyadic treatment literature).

About the study

Improving alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment among Veterans is a national public health problem. The rate of AUD among Veterans is twice that of civilians, with up to 50% of Veterans having AUD. Family-based AUD programs are rarely undertaken in busy treatment clinics, and Veterans with problem drinking behavior or AUD are commonly excluded from couple therapies. As a result, there is a need to develop effective family AUD treatments that are both brief and highly accessible to Veterans.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate a new treatment add-on called Brief Family-Involved Treatment (B-FIT), which will be delivered via telehealth among Veterans engaged in alcohol-based treatment/therapy.

This study is an 12-week, Stage-II, open randomized controlled trial examining B-FIT in combination with treatment as usual (TAU), (in this case B-FIT+ Cognitive Behavioral Therapy treatment) as compared to TAU alone (CBT treatment).Veterans and their treatment companion (family member, partner, friend) will complete weekly assessments during the treatment phase in addition to 3 \& 6 month follow-up assessments, all via telehealth.

What is being tested

• Brief Family-Involved Treatment (B-FIT) (behavioral)
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Alcohol Use Disorder (CBT for AUD) (behavioral)

Sponsor: Medical University of South Carolina · Participants: 400 · Started: Mar 13, 2023

Contact the study team

• Stacey Sellers, MS · Phone: 843-792-5807
• Julianne Flanagan, PhD · Phone: 843-792-5569

Official record on ClinicalTrials.gov — NCT05674409

Locations in the U.S.

Conditions

• Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)

From ClinicalTrials.gov, data retrieved Sep 30, 2026. Each study sets its own eligibility; the study team decides who can join.