Developing a Music Listening mHealth Intervention for Stress Reduction in Early Recovery

The overarching goal of this study is to develop and examine the feasibility of a music-listening intervention that can be deployed in "real time" to regulate emotions and reduce momentary stress among young adults within the first 12 months of recovery from alcohol use disorder. We design the study with two phases to address three aims: Phase I includes the first two aims. For Aim 1, we will conduct formative research with a sample of young adults (N = 30) who have are within 12 months of recovery to identify features of music selections that are most effective in reducing momentary stress in real-world, ambulatory settings. For Aim 2, we will focus on developing mobile health technology that uses passive sensing and machine learning to automatically predict moments of heightened stress in real-time and suggest specific musical selections when stress is detected. During Phase II (Aim 3), we will test the feasibility of a novel music-listening intervention among a second unique sample of young adults who are within 12 months of recovery from AUD (N = 30). This protocol refers only to Phase I of the larger study, which focuses on observing music listening preferences and physiological and mental stress among people in early recovery from alcohol use disorder.