This one is for our new addiction research followers!
The NIHR have announced a new funding scheme within the Health Technology Assessment programme titled: Facilitated access to mutual aid for adults with problem alcohol and drug use. This will be the first stage of a 2 stage application to commission a trial delivering a mutual aid intervention.
The research question for this call is:
What is the clinical and cost-effectiveness of facilitating access to mutual aid for people with problem alcohol and drug use in England?
This scheme is aimed at interventions for adults using mutual aid, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous or similar. Research has suggested that only around a third of people in treatment for drug and/or alcohol dependence attended a mutual aid support group, even though the combination of both forms of treatment have been associated with better outcomes and improved long term recovery rates.
According to the NIHR, study designs should cover things such as:
- development adapting the Intensive Referral Intervention for delivery in drug and alcohol services
- RCT to test key trial processes
- Issues of adherence to the intervention
The key outcomes under consideration will be:
- Engagement
- Continued remission
- Cost effectiveness
There are no stated limits to the duration of the designed intervention, or the cost of the project. As per the research question – this scheme is open to work being conducted within England, with priority given to underserved areas with the greatest need.
The deadline for stage one applications is 1300 on 24 July.
There are several documents to help prepare an application for this call:
- Commissioning brief, including research question and study parameters – here
- Application supporting information which covers topics of concern to all HTA applications – here
- Guidance notes on completing the application – here
As with all NIHR funding schemes -the NIHR Research Support Service is available to help preparing the application or thinking about suitability for the scheme