"Information about Drinking for Ex-serving personnel (InDEx)" - Development of a personalised alcohol app

众所周知，酒精问题在军队中比在其他人群中更常见。酒精消费和狂饮（在短时间内喝大量酒精）的水平几乎是两倍。虽然这种差异可以用在军队中的同伴压力来解释，但令人惊讶的是，当有人离开武装部队时，饮酒水平似乎并没有下降。先前的研究表明，大量饮酒的人（无论是在军队还是普通人群中）似乎都没有意识到他们有问题，所以他们不太可能在没有任何提示的情况下改变他们的饮酒习惯。在人们离开军队时提供治疗（也称为干预）可能是有益的，以帮助他们减少饮酒，此时军队生活的同龄人压力可能会减轻。对于需要减少饮酒但不依赖酒精的离职人员，什么样的干预措施或治疗方法可能适合他们，证据有限。现有的研究表明，旨在帮助人们降低饮酒量的电子干预（如计算机或移动的手机应用程序）可能会有所帮助。这些治疗方法是为普通人群开发的，也可能适用于军人。但很可能需要做出一些改变。这项研究的目的是开发一种电子干预，可以通过移动的电话传递，帮助离开武装部队的人降低酒精消费量，并在一次会议中少喝酒。这方面的研究并不多，所以在大规模测试干预措施之前，早期的研究会有所帮助。在这项早期研究中，我们想回答一些问题;这些问题是：1）看看目前在军队服役或离开军队的人酗酒的原因; 2）使用这些信息来设计一个与退役军人相关且有意义的移动的电话应用程序，从而帮助他们减少饮酒，三是测试少数退役人员是否接受这种干预，并了解他们认为如何加以改进。一旦这些问题得到解答，那么就有可能在更多的人身上测试干预措施。这项研究的好处是，它可以帮助我们理解为什么武装部队的人酗酒，为什么他们离开时不减少饮酒量。这些信息将与一些组织有关，如卫生服务和退伍军人慈善机构。它还将帮助我们开发一种更有可能成功的治疗方法，因为它与这些人更相关。减少退役人员饮酒量有很多可能的好处;它可以帮助降低许多疾病的风险，如肝脏疾病和癌症，它可以提高人们在日常生活中的生产力，并可以减少人们因酒精相关的伤害和疾病去看医生的次数。这些变化不仅使个人受益，还可以为雇主和公共服务节省资金。

It is well known that alcohol problems are more common in the military than in the rest of the population. Levels of alcohol consumption and binge drinking (drinking lots of alcohol in a short space of time) are almost twice as high. Whilst this difference could be explained by the peer pressure of being in a military unit, with others who are drinking heavily, it is surprising that levels of drinking do not seem to decrease when someone leaves the Armed Forces. Previous research has shown that people who drink heavily (both in the military and the general population) do not seem to recognise that they have a problem, so they are unlikely to change their drinking without any prompts. There may be a benefit in providing a treatment (also known as an intervention) to people when they are leaving the military, to help them to reduce their drinking, at a time when the peer pressure of military life may lessen. There is limited evidence on what interventions or treatments might be suitable for ex-serving personnel who need to lower their drinking, but who are not dependent on alcohol. Existing research has shown that electronic interventions (such as computer or mobile phone applications), which aim to help someone lower the amount they drink, can be helpful. These treatments, which have been developed for the general population, may also be suitable for people from the military. But it is likely that some changes will need to be made.The aim of this research is to develop an electronic intervention, which can be delivered through a mobile phone, to help people leaving the Armed Forces to lower their alcohol consumption and to drink less in a single session. There isn't a lot of research in this area so an early study would be helpful before testing the intervention on a larger scale. There are a number of questions we want to answer in this early study; these are: 1) to look at the reasons why people who are currently in, or leaving, the Armed Forces drink heavily; 2) to use this information to design a mobile phone application that is relevant and meaningful to the ex-serving military population, and so should help them to reduce their drinking, and 3) to test if this intervention is acceptable to a small number of ex-serving personnel and to find out how they think that it could be improved. Once these questions have been answered then it should be possible to test the intervention with a larger number of people.The benefits of this research are that it can help us understand why people in the Armed Forces drink heavily and why they don't lower their drinking when they leave. This information will be relevant to a number of organisations, such as health services and veterans' charities. It will also help us to develop a treatment that is more likely to be successful, because it will be more relevant to these individuals. There are lots of possible benefits to reducing the amount ex-service people drink; it can help to lower the risk of many conditions such as liver disease and cancer, it can improve how productive people are in their daily lives and can lower the number of times people visit their doctor with alcohol related injuries and illness. As well as benefitting the individuals, these changes could also save money for employers and public services.