Exploring motives for reducing alcohol consumption among users of an alcohol reduction app:A content analysis

<div><b>Background</b>: </div><div>It is important to understand the motives behind why people want to reduce their alcohol consumption to inform messaging for public health campaigns.</div><div><br/></div><div><b>Objective</b>: </div><div>This study aimed to identify the motives for reducing alcohol consumption among users of the Drink Less app in the UK.</div><div><br/></div><div><b>Methods</b>: </div><div>Content analysis of Drink Less app users’ response to the prompt “I want to drink less because…”. Users were aged 18+, lived in the UK and have downloaded the app between 20/5/2016 and 24/6/2024 (n=2,520). Inductive content analysis was conducted to analyse users’ motives to drink less and the frequencies were stratified by age, sex and Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) score categories.</div><div><br/></div><div><b>Results</b>: </div><div>The most common motives to drink less were wanting to: improve their physical health (52.7%); feel better in their body (32.7%); improve their mental wellbeing (22.5%); regain agency (19.2%); live a different life (12.7%); and have better relationships (12.3%). The motives for drinking less ‘improve physical health’ and ‘feel better in their body’ had a lower prevalence among users in higher AUDIT risk zones compared with low-risk, while wanting to ‘improve their mental wellbeing’, ‘regain agency’, ‘live a different life’ and to ‘have better relationships’ had a higher prevalence among users in higher AUDIT risk zones. </div><div><br/></div><div><b>Conclusions</b>: </div><div>Users of an alcohol reduction app in the UK most commonly reported wanting to improve their physical health, feel better in their body and improve their mental wellbeing as their motive for drinking less alcohol. The pattern of prevalence of different motives varied by AUDIT risk zones highlighting the importance of tailoring interventions based on what is most likely to be motivating for individuals. </div>