An interventional study of Food4Thought and Singularities in Alcohol Problem, sponsored by University of Pittsburgh. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 14 Years to 18 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-07-16.
Sponsored by University of Pittsburgh · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention
This is a randomized controlled trial to learn if the Singularities, a game-based intervention, works to reduce alcohol-related harms among youth. It will also learn if Singularities reduces alcohol use behaviors and improves alcohol protective behavioral strategies, adaptive coping skills, and healthy social media use. The main questions it aims to answer are:
Researchers will compare Singularities to an attention control program, Food4Thought, a game-based intervention about nutrition, physical activity, and teen well-being, to see if Singularities works to reduce alcohol-related harms.
Participants will:
156 studies on the registry are indexed under Alcohol-Related Disorders; 23 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 1,992 is above the median of 101 across 131 interventional studies indexed under Alcohol-Related Disorders.
Browse Alcohol-Related Disorders studies →University of Pittsburgh is the lead sponsor of 1,419 studies on the registry; 168 are open to participants now.
Of its 9 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 4 (44%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria:
- None
Singularities is a theory-based, community-informed, web-accessible intervention that includes a game, discussion board, and resources that incorporate 3 components for encouraging use of adaptive coping skills, alcohol protective behavioral strategies, and healthy internet and social media use.
Behavioral: Singularities
Food4Thought is an attention control condition in which participants receive similar amounts of research team contact and program contact as the Singularities intervention. Participants will play the game Pick Your Plate! A Global Guide to Nutrition, developed by the Smithsonian Science Education Center, and learn about resources and respond to questions about nutrition, physical activity, and teen well-being (without the mention of anything pertaining to alcohol use).
Behavioral: Food4Thought
Food4Thought is an attention control condition in which participants receive similar amounts of research team contact and program contact as the intervention. Participants will play the game Pick Your Plate! A Global Guide to Nutrition, developed by the Smithsonian Science Education Center. Participants are instructed to build healthy meals using cuisine from around the world while ensuring they stick to a budget and meet all their nutritional needs. Food4Thought will be delivered via Qualtrics.
Singularities is a theory-based, community-informed, web-accessible intervention that includes a game, discussion board, and resources that incorporate 3 components for encouraging use of adaptive coping skills, alcohol protective behavioral strategies, and healthy internet and social media use.
Alcohol-related harms
Participants report how many times they experienced 19 different alcohol-related harms, based on the measure from the the School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHAHRP). Example harms include hangover after drinking, inability to remember what happened after drinking, having sex that they later regretted, trouble with parent(s) because of drinking, physical fight because they were affected by alcohol, and drove in a vehicle after drinking. Response options for each harm range from "never" (0) to "12 times or more" (12). Scores range from 0 to 228, with higher scores indicating more alcohol-related harms.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Drinking quantity
Number of drinks consumed on a typical day of drinking assessed via Quantity-Frequency items
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Drinking frequency
Number of days on which one or more drinks were consumed assessed via Quantity-Frequency items.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Binge drinking frequency
Number of times when 4 or 5+ drinks (asking both regardless of assigned/biological sex at birth) were consumed in a 2-hour period assessed via National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) items.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Alcohol use initiation
Participants report whether or not they drank alcohol, which is assessed via the Youth Risk Behavior Survey item about lifetime alcohol use.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Alcohol protective behavioral strategies
Which alcohol protective behavioral strategies are engaged in while drinking or partying, measured with the Protective Behavioral Strategies Scale (PBSS). Scores range from 20 to 120, with higher scores indicating more skills used.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Bystander alcohol risk reduction skills
Total number of times specific strategies were used to help others before, during, or after drinking, using the Strategies subscale of the Bystanders to Alcohol Risk Scale (BARS). Scores range from 0 to 27, with higher scores indicating more skills used.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Emotional distress tolerance skills
Ability to endure negative emotional states, measured with the Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS). Scores range from 15 to 75, with higher scores indicating better distress tolerance.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Emotion regulation and decentering practices
How often mindfulness practices are used, measured with the Applied Mindfulness Process Scale (AMPS). Scores range from 0 to 60, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Healthy social media use
Using MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey items, this self-report measure assesses adolescents' perceptions of the social, emotional, and behavioral impacts of social media use. Participants indicate their level of agreement with 11 statements on a 5-point Likert scale, with higher average scores reflecting healthier social media use.
Time frame: Baseline, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months
Plan to share: Yes — All of the individual participant data collected during the trial, after deidentification.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Informed consent form
Time frame: IPD will be available 12 months after the end of the study. There is no end date.
Access criteria: Anyone who wishes to access the data and supporting information from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Data Archive (NIAAA DA).
Data sharing details ↗ · nda.nih.gov
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
Started Jun 2026 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Jun 2028, 24 months after the start.
Of 49 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Alcohol-Related Disorders, half reached primary completion within 30 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 17 and three quarters within 44. This study's planned 24 months is below that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 49 studies reached it within 30 months; a quarter within 17 and three quarters within 44.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
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