Alcohol Capture

Alcohol Capture is a freely available custom-built iOS/Android app that can be used to record alcohol intake over 14 days for research purposes.

Designed by Dr Antoinette Poulton and developed in collaboration with Ant Development Studios, the app has been found a valid and reliable measure of alcohol intake, participant compliance has been identified as high, and reactivity to protocols over time low (Poulton et al., 2018, 2019).

The app is programmed to include commonly available alcoholic drinks. For each beverage, users can choose from a range of sizes corresponding to those sold in licensed premises and retail outlets across Australia.

Alcohol intake data can be submitted at any time, either in response to twice daily notifications or while drinking. Users can see a history of their submission dates and times, but not drinking data.

Get Involved

Interested in reducing your alcohol consumption? Become a participant in the next phase of this program of research:

https://tinyurl.com/Checkmycontrol23

Research

Alcohol Capture (also called CNLab-A app) has been the subject of methodological investigations:

Poulton, A., Pan, J., Bruns, L. R., Sinnott, R. O., & Hester, R. (2019). A smartphone app to assess alcohol consumption behavior: Development, compliance, and reactivity. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(3), e11157

Poulton, A., Pan, J., Bruns Jr, L. R., Sinnott, R. O., & Hester, R. (2018). Assessment of alcohol intake: Retrospective measures versus a smartphone application. Addictive Behaviors, 83, 35-41

The app has been integral to empirical studies in the area of alcohol use consequences, cognition, and vulnerability for transition to alcohol use disorder:

Poulton, A., Mata, A., Pan, J., Bruns, L. R., Sinnott, R. O., & Hester, R. (2019). Predictors of adverse alcohol use consequences among tertiary students. Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, 43(5), 877-887

Poulton, A., Eastwood, O., Bruns Jr, L. R., Sinnott, R. O., & Hester, R. (2022). Addressing methodological issues in a study of impulsivity and vulnerability for transition to alcohol use disorder. Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, 46(2), 262-276

More recently, the app was employed as a brief intervention designed to reduce alcohol intake. This proof-of-concept study showed that when young adults are provided with individualised information about their level of consumption and associated potential harmful consequences, they reduce alcohol intake by up to 35%:

Poulton, A., Dali, G., McGinness, C., Clarke, S., Turner, T., Liu, J., Giggins, J., Marcuson, R., & Hester, R. (2023). Impact of personalised alcohol intake and cognitive feedback on alcohol use behaviour in hazardous drinkers: A quasi-randomised trial. Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, 47(7), 1377-1389.

Media

Request Access

Research users can request a dedicated user account from Dr Poulton (antoinette.poulton@unimelb.edu.au). This will provide them with a Research ID and backend access to participant data associated with this ID.