Petra K. Staiger

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Deakin University

The aim of this study was to pilot an adapted version of an online relationships program with residents in treatment for alcohol and other drugs (AOD). The OurRelationship (OR) Program, which is based on Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy, was piloted in a group-based format to determine whether residents' participation in the program would res...

Summary: Sleep deprivation may have a deleterious effect on inhibitory control; however, this effect is not consistent across studies. To arrive at an overall estimate of the relationship between sleep deprivation and inhibitory control, this report used meta-analysis to summarise the magnitude of the effects of sleep deprivation on inhibitory cont...

Background/Aims: Inhibitory control training (ICT) is a cognitive intervention that has been suggested to reduce problematic appetitive behaviours, such as unhealthy eating and excessive alcohol consumption. We conducted a meta-analytic review of ICT for reducing appetitive behaviours. Methods: Two meta-analyses were conducted for behavioural (o...

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) people experience elevated rates of suicidal ideation and attempts. This scoping review examines the effectiveness of suicide prevention programs for SGM people. Eligibility criteria included: the intervention was specifically designed for SGM people or specific analysis of SGM (sub)samples; reported suicide or suic...

Exposure to gender‐related minority stressors, the negative experiences and beliefs that stem from anti‐trans stigma increases transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people's vulnerability to experiencing poor mental health outcomes. This study examined if the relationships between experiences of minority stress and mental health outcomes were mediat...

Purpose: The purpose of this randomized controlled trial (Trial registration ID: redacted) was to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of the Step One program, an SMS-based alcohol intervention for same-sex attracted women (SSAW). Methods: Ninety-seven SSAW who scored ≥8 on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) we...

Background: Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is recommended as the first-line treatment yet remains underutilised in general practice. Understanding patient motivations and barriers to engaging in psychological interventions for insomnia is critical. Theoretical frameworks, such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour, are needed to i...

Objective: To investigate the medium-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on violence-related offences in Australia, and whether there was evidence of a 'dual pandemic' of family violence in addition to COVID-19. Methods: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average time series were conducted to analyse publicly available violent crime statistics d...

There is an increasing focus on evaluating the effectiveness of Relationship Education (RE) programs on reducing relationship aggression. Nevertheless, there has been little by way of a systematic quantitative synthesis of research to date. The primary aim of this research was to conduct a meta-analysis into the effects of RE programs on relationsh...

High food-reward sensitivity and low inhibitory control are modifiable targets for overeating interventions. Our review of 16 food-related response-inhibition training (RIT) trials identified key elements linked to effectiveness, including recruiting from at-risk populations (i.e. those with overweight or heightened snacking behaviour), and designi...

Aims Despite the magnitude of alcohol use problems globally, treatment uptake remains low. This study sought to determine the proportion of people presenting to telephone-delivered alcohol treatment who are first-time help-seekers, and explored perceived barriers to help-seeking to understand the barriers this format of treatment may help to addres...

Insomnia is a prevalent issue in AOD settings. Many use substances for their sedative effect or experience insomnia as a consequence of substance use, insomnia is a common feature of withdrawal and often linked to relapse. In this study, a community-based AOD service is piloting a stepped-care intervention for insomnia. Nine AOD clinicians underwen...

Importance: Despite the magnitude of alcohol use problems globally, treatment uptake remains low. Telephone-delivered interventions have potential to overcome many structural and individual barriers to help seeking, yet their effectiveness as a stand-alone treatment for problem alcohol use has not been established. Objective: To examine the effe...

Background Approach bias modification (ApBM) for alcohol use disorder helps prevent relapse, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying its efficacy remain unclear. Alcohol craving predicts relapse and appears to be related to the biased processing of alcohol stimuli which is reduced by ApBM. However, there is little research examining whether ApB...

Objectives: Alcohol is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in Australia and the consequences of alcohol consumption have enormous personal and social impacts. This study aimed to describe the principal diagnoses of emergency department (ED) presentations involving alcohol use in the previous 12 hours at eight hospitals in Victoria and...

Background and Aims Substance use disorders (SUD) are associated with cognitive deficits that are not always addressed in current treatments, and this hampers recovery. Cognitive training and remediation interventions are well suited to fill the gap for managing cognitive deficits in SUD. We aimed to reach consensus on recommendations for developin...

Background and aims: Approach bias modification (ApBM) targeting alcohol approach bias has been previously shown to reduce likelihood of relapse during the first 2 weeks following inpatient withdrawal treatment (IWT). We tested whether ApBM's effects endure for a longer period by analysing alcohol use outcomes 3, 6, and 12 months post-discharge....

Objective: Inhibitory control training (ICT) has shown promise for improving health behaviours, however, less is known about its mediators of effectiveness. The current paper reports whether ICT reduces smoking-related outcomes such as craving and nicotine dependence, increases motivation to quit and whether reductions in smoking or craving are med...

Background Sexual minority men (SMM) often experience stressful social environments dominated by stigma and discrimination. SMM are typically more likely than heterosexual men to engage in certain risky behaviours such as problem gambling. This study aimed to compare gambling behaviour among SMM and examine potential risk factors (erroneous gamblin...

Introduction: Alcohol approach bias, the tendency to automatically move toward alcohol cues, has been observed in people who drink heavily. However, surprisingly, some alcohol-dependent patients demonstrate an alcohol avoidance bias. This inconsistency could be explained by the clinical or demographic profile of the population studied, yet this has...

Psychological interventions for addictive behaviours (i.e., alcohol, smoking, gambling) typically focus on reducing the frequency of that target behaviour. Individuals generally set a “count goal” and then monitor the frequency of these behaviours via a process of counting/recording (i.e., number of alcoholic drinks, number of dollars gambled). We...

Background: Given the prevalence of long-term benzodiazepine (BZDs) prescribing, increased monitoring through the implementation of prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) may be the necessary impetus to promote BZD deprescribing. Despite evidence promoting the importance of patient-centred care, GPs have not been sufficiently supported to impleme...

Objective: There is a demonstrated link between the mental health and substance use comorbidities experienced by young adults, however the vast majority of psychological interventions are disorder specific. Novel psychological approaches that adequately acknowledge the psychosocial complexity and transdiagnostic needs of vulnerable young people are...

Importance: More than half of patients with alcohol use disorder who receive inpatient withdrawal treatment relapse within weeks of discharge, hampering subsequent uptake and effectiveness of psychological and pharmacologic interventions. Cognitive bias modification (CBM) improves outcomes after alcohol rehabilitation, but the efficacy of deliveri...

Degraded parks in disadvantaged areas are underutilized for recreation, which may impact long-term health. Using a natural experiment, we examined the effects of local government refurbishments to parks (n = 3 intervention; n = 3 comparison) in low socioeconomic areas (LSEA) of Melbourne on park use, health behavior, social engagement and psycholog...

Psychological interventions for addictive behaviours (i.e., alcohol, smoking, gambling) typically focus on reducing the frequency of that target behaviour. Individuals generally set a “count goal” and then monitor the frequency of these behaviours via a process of counting/recording (i.e., number of alcoholic drinks, number of dollars gambled). We...

The Therapeutic Community (TC) model is considered an effective treatment for substance dependence, particularly for individuals with complex presentations. While a popular approach for this cohort across a number of countries, few studies have focussed on biopsychosocial and longer-term outcomes for this treatment modality. This study reports on s...

: Internationally there is an escalation of prescription-related overdose deaths, particularly related to benzodiazepine use. As a result, many countries have implemented prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) to increase the regulation of benzodiazepine medications. PMPs centralize prescription data for prescribers and pharmacists and generate al...

BACKGROUND mHealth for substance misuse (i.e., alcohol/drugs) has the potential to bypass common barriers to treatment-seeking. Ten years following the release of the first mobile app targeting substance misuse, their effectiveness, usage and acceptability remains unclear. OBJECTIVE To conduct a systematic literature review of trials evaluating mo...

Background Mobile apps for problematic substance use have the potential to bypass common barriers to treatment seeking. Ten years following the release of the first app targeting problematic tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use, their effectiveness, use, and acceptability remains unclear. Objective This study aims to conduct a systematic literat...

Abstract Background Current population surveys suggest around 20% of Australians meet diagnostic criteria for an alcohol use disorder. However, only a minority seek professional help due to individual and structural barriers, such as low health literacy, stigma, geography, service operating hours and wait lists. Telephone-delivered interventions ar...

Deficits regulating emotions are a core process underlying both substance use and mental health disorders. Research has focused on identifying one-to-one associations between individual emotion regulation (ER) strategies and mental health symptoms. Consequently, little is known about how patterns of ER relate to a broad range of psychopathology, in...

Rationale: Therapeutic communities (TC) for alcohol and other drug treatment rely strongly on social factors as agents of recovery; an approach known as 'community-as-method'. This study adopted a social identity approach in examining the relative strength of participants' recovery group identity and substance using group identity at admission (T1...

A range of studies have demonstrated that regular drinkers respond to alcohol-related stimuli with increased self-reported craving for alcohol (cue-reactivity). Considerable individual differences have been found in terms of the magnitude of the craving response. However, less work has been conducted to assess the role of cognitive factors in influ...

Objective: The high rates of illness and mortality associated with cigarette smoking necessitate the development of novel reduction and cessation treatments. Inhibitory control training (ICT) has recently emerged as a potentially efficacious intervention to reduce the consumption of alcohol and unhealthy food. This randomized controlled trial was...

Introduction: Daily assessment studies have examined how day specific factors, such as affect, social context, and drinking motives, alongside dispositional drinking motives, predict young adults' drinking. However, these studies did not examine how the interplay between drinking motives (dispositional and day specific) and multiple features of th...

Background: According to contemporary neurocognitive models, addiction is maintained by the biasing of information-processing and decision-making systems towards relatively automatic, impulsive, reward-seeking responses to drug-related stimuli, and away from more controlled, deliberative, "reflective" states of processing that could result in deci...

Background Smartphone-based interventions are a potentially effective way to minimize alcohol-related harm in young adult, non-dependent drinkers. This pilot study is the first to evaluate the benefits and feasibility of a personalized alcohol harm-minimization intervention delivered via smartphones. Methods Within a single-blind, randomized contr...

Background Adolescence is a critical developmental period in the trajectory of nicotine dependence, highlighting the need for a greater understanding of the modifiable risk factors. An extensive body of research has found that trait impulsivity is associated with higher levels of adolescent smoking; however, findings have been mixed. The present st...

Background Sharing anonymised ED data with community agencies to reduce alcohol‐related injury and assaults has been found effective in the UK. This protocol document outlines the design of an Australian multi‐site trial using shared, anonymised ED data to reduce alcohol‐related harm. Design and Method Nine hospitals will participate in a 36 month...

Background There is a large disparity between alcohol treatment access and prevalence of hazardous drinking among same-sex attracted women (SSAW). Yet, this population typically report low satisfaction with care and a reluctance to attend mainstream health services. Currently, there are few culturally tailored services for SSAW available despite ev...

Background: The Social Identity approach offers a unifying framework for understanding recovery from addiction as a process of identity change, associated with change in social network composition. This paper introduces Social Identity Mapping in Addiction Recovery (SIM-AR) — a visual method for capturing social group memberships, extended to integ...

Deficits regulating emotions are a core process underlying both substance use and mental health disorders. Research has focused on identifying one-to-one associations between individual emotion regulation (ER) strategies and mental health symptoms. Consequently, little is known about how patterns of ER relate to a broad range of psychopathology, in...

Social relationships play a major role in recovery from substance dependence. To date, greater attention has been paid to the role of important individuals in a person’s life and their contribution to recovery following treatment. This study is the first to examine both individual and wider group-based social connections in the lead up to residenti...

Impulsive personality traits and adolescent cigarette smoking: A meta-analysis. Published manuscript can be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.01.018

Background Smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of illness and premature death worldwide. Despite a variety of effective treatments, relapse rates remain high, and novel, innovative interventions are needed in order to reduce the global prevalence of smoking. Research has indicated that deficits in the ability to inhibit a response (ref...

Background People with alcohol use disorders often exhibit an “alcohol approach bias”, the automatically triggered action tendency to approach alcohol. Approach bias is likely to persist following withdrawal from alcohol, and contribute to the high rate of relapse following withdrawal treatment. Cognitive bias modification (CBM) training has been s...

Background A range of psychological constructs, including perceived pain, self-efficacy, and pain avoidance, have been proposed to account for the comorbidity of chronic pain and affective disorder symptoms. Despite the likely inter-relation among these constructs, few studies have explored these predictors simultaneously. As such, the relative con...

Background Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and substance use disorders (SUD) are frequently co‐morbid and their co‐occurrence exacerbates the symptomatology and associated harms for both disorders. However, few intervention studies have examined the delivery of an integrated intervention for BPD and SUD within alcohol and other drug (AOD) tre...

Individuals accessing treatment within the youth alcohol and other drug (AoD) sector represent a highly vulnerable population who present with complex patterns of substance use and mental health comorbidity. Current treatments often fail to address this complexity. Emotion regulation (ER) has been identified as a promising transdiagnostic treatment...

A large body of research has implicated difficulties in emotion regulation as central to the development and maintenance of psychopathology. Emotion regulation has therefore been proposed as a transdiagnostic construct or an underlying mechanism in psychopathology. The transdiagnostic role of emotion regulation has yet to be systematically examined...

Limited human studies have directly tested the dissociation between wanting and liking with human substance users, a core tenet of the Incentive Sensitisation Theory (IST). The aim of this study is to test the dissociation between wanting and liking in humans across two commonly used licit substances, alcohol and caffeine. The STRAP-R (Sensitivity...

An increasingly popular form of data collection in health psychology research is Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA); that is, using diaries or smartphones to collect intensive longitudinal data. This method is increasingly applied to the study of relationships between state-based aspects of individuals’ functioning and health outcomes (e.g., bin...

Whilst a growing body of evidence demonstrates people derive a range of health and wellbeing benefits from visiting parks, only a limited number of attempts have been made to provide a complementary economic assessment of parks. The aim of this exploratory study was to directly estimate the perceived health and wellbeing benefits attained from park...

Background The present study evaluated the influence of psychological factors (anxiety, depression, fear avoidance, and self‐efficacy) in predicting patient adherence to their personalised post‐intervention treatment maintenance plan for the interval between discharge from an out‐patient treatment and follow‐up at 3–6 months. Methods Participants...

Introduction Individuals with social anxiety disorder do poorly in residential treatment programs for the treatment of drug dependence. This is not surprising given the social nature of residential rehabilitation where group work and close social interactions are required. Objectives Given the social nature of residential rehabilitation, we were i...

Introduction Recent outcomes of novel cognitive bias modification (CBM) interventions targeting approach-bias have shown promising results in reducing drinking behavior in inpatient and community settings. These studies have primarily been conducted with patients who are receiving concurrent treatment. Alcohol inpatient detoxification provides an o...

Introduction Parks in disadvantaged suburbs often have low quality and few amenities, which is likely to result in them being underutilised for recreation and physical activity. Refurbishment of parks, including shade, walking paths and other amenities, may have broad health-related benefits. Methods and analysis The study design, methods and plan...

Background: Evidence indicates that substance-related cognitive biases (attentional, memory, and approach bias) contribute to the maintenance and development of substance misuse. Impulsivity has been suggested to influence how cognitive biases contribute to substance misuse, possibly by biasing incentive salience attribution processes. However, th...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how social identity change can support the TC objective of promoting “right living”. This is compatible with the literature on addiction recovery which has shown that identity change is central to this process. While much of the earlier literature focussed primarily on an individual analysis of ch...

Background: Relapse is common in alcohol-dependent individuals and can be triggered by alcohol-related cues in the environment. It has been suggested that these individuals develop cognitive biases, in which cues automatically capture attention and elicit an approach action tendency that promotes alcohol seeking. The study aim was to examine wheth...

Objective: To explore the relationship between benzodiazepine use and violent crime in a sample of community-based offenders. Methods: Participants were recruited via drug diversion and treatment programs in Melbourne, Australia. Data regarding benzodiazepine and other substance use, mental health, personality characteristics, and crime involvement...

The systematic examination of motivational interviewing (MI) training outcomes provides a cautionary tale for the dissemination of evidence-based psychological interventions in the substance abuse field. We argue that in order to achieve sustained practice of MI, a greater understanding of successful implementation fidelity in real world settings i...

Sail training refers to sea voyages designed to foster personal and social change. Such training has mainly involved young people but may have the potential to benefit adults who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. During the voyage described here clients in drug rehabilitation centres across the UK were given the opportunity to partici...

Benzodiazepine-related aggression has received insufficient research attention, in particular little is known about the motivational factors which may contribute to the development of this paradoxical response. The revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory provides a theoretical framework from which to understand the relevant underlying motivational...

Objective We identify drinking styles that place teens at greatest risk of later alcohol use disorders (AUD). Design Population-based cohort study. Setting Victoria, Australia. Participants A representative sample of 1943 adolescents living in Victoria in 1992. Outcome measures Teen drinking was assessed at 6 monthly intervals (5 waves) between mea...

Background: Heavy episodic drinking (HED) has been associated with increased risk for short- and long-term injury and harms, such as violence and delinquent behaviour; however, the temporal relationship between the two remains unclear, particularly on transition to young adulthood. This study investigates transactional pathways between HED and del...

Motivational interviewing (MI) is the most successfully disseminated evidence-based practice in the substance use disorder (SUD) treatment field. This systematic review considers two questions relevant to policymakers and service providers: (1) does training in MI achieve sustained practice change in clinicians delivering SUD treatment; and (2) do...

To understand how pain-related cognitions predict and influence treatment retention and adherence during and after a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program. Electronic databases including Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Academic Search Complete, and Scopus were used to search three combinations of keywords: chronic pain, beliefs, and treatment adheren...

Alcohol cue-reactivity research has revealed substantial variability in the degree to which individuals react to alcohol-related cues (e.g., sight and smell of alcohol). One factor which may account for this variability in reactivity to alcohol cues is the perceived reward value of the cue, termed cue-reward salience, which previous research sugges...

Past research has demonstrated a strong relationship between threat sensitivity and social anxiety; however, the relationship between reward sensitivity and social anxiety is less clear. Further, the role that emotion regulation (ER) may play in the expression of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is rarely considered. The current study tested whether t...

Although most conceptualizations of social anxiety emphasise that socially anxious individuals are overtly shy, and utilise avoidant behavioural strategies (e.g., risk-aversion, passivity, and submissiveness), there is tentative support for the existence of an approach-motivated subtype, characterised by risk taking and a greater propensity for sub...

Context: The relationship between benzodiazepine consumption and subsequent increases in aggressive behaviour in humans is not well understood. Objectives: The current study aimed to identify, via a systematic review, whether there is an association between benzodiazepine consumption and aggressive responding in adults. Method: A systematic re...

The evidence linking the personality trait of impulsivity and substance misuse is well established. Importantly, impulsivity not only predicts substance misuse problems but has an association with duration in treatment, likelihood of completing treatment and time to relapse. Treatment that focuses on increasing awareness and acceptance of thoughts...

Individuals with a hypersensitivity to threatening stimuli in the environment may be more likely to experience a higher level of social anxiety. According to Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST), there are two important aspects of threat stimuli that influence subsequent emotional and behavioral responses. Specifically, perceptions pertaining to...

Background: Residential drug rehabilitation is often seen as a treatment of last resort for people with severe substance abuse issues. These clients present with more severe symptoms, and frequent psychiatric comorbidities relative to outpatients. Given the complex nature of this client group, a high proportion of clients seeking treatment often d...

Objectives: To review the current research on alcohol-related violence and sports participation. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were used to identify relevant studies for inclusion. A search of six databases (EBSCOhost) was conducted. Results: A total of 6890 studies was were identifi...

Issues addressed: Community and school cooking and gardening programs have recently increased internationally. However, despite promising indications, there is limited evidence of their effectiveness. This paper presents the evaluation framework and methods negotiated and developed to meet the information needs of all stakeholders for the Stephani...

Objective: Evaluate achievement of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program in increasing child appreciation of diverse, healthy foods. Design: Comparative 2-year study. Setting: Six program and 6 comparison primary schools in rural and metropolitan Victoria, Australia, matched for socioeconomic status and size. Participants: A total of 76...

Aims: Despite recognition of the harms related to alcohol misuse and its potential to interfere substantially with sustained recovery from drug dependency, research evaluating drug treatment outcomes has not addressed the issue comprehensively. It has been overlooked possibly because treatment research has been framed according to the primary drug...

This paper reports on the evaluation of a kitchen garden program in primary schools in Victoria, Australia. It focuses on the motivations, impacts, and issues associated with volunteering in the program. The study revealed that volunteers are drawn from a range of sources, including: families of current and former students, former teachers, local r...

This article presents results from a mixed-method evaluation of a structured cooking and gardening program in Australian primary schools, focusing on program impacts on the social and learning environment of the school. In particular, we address the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program objective of providing a pleasurable experience that has...

Mental health issues such as depression or anxiety and alcohol or other drug (AOD) problems often remain undiagnosed and untreated despite their prevalence in the community. This paper reports on the implementation and evaluation of an AOD and depression/anxiety screening programme within two Community Health Services (CHS) in Australia. Study 1 ex...

Despite the attention given to the broad topic of alcohol and violence, there are few studies of this relationship in the context of sporting events and their impact on alcohol-related hospital emergency department (ED) attendances, none of which are Australian. De-identified patient records from Barwon Health's Geelong Hospital ED were analysed fr...

Young people are a high risk group for gambling problems and university (college) students fall into that category. Given the high accessibility of gambling in Australia and its association with entertainment, students from overseas countries, particularly those where gambling is restricted or illegal, may be particularly vulnerable. This study exa...

This article presents results from a mixed-method evaluation of a structured cooking and gardening program in Australian primary schools, focusing on program impacts on the social and learning environment of the school. In particular, we address the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program objective of providing a pleasurable experience that has...

There are inconsistent research findings regarding the impact of rurality on adolescent alcohol, tobacco, and illicit substance use. Therefore, the current study reports on the effect of rurality on alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use among adolescents in 2 state representative samples in 2 countries, Washington State (WA) in the United States a...

Background The current study was designed to evaluate a screening process for alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems with clients presenting with mental health (MH) issues at an emergency department (ED) at an urban hospital. Method In total, 145 ED clients were referred for MH issues. Of these, 53 were screened for AOD problems using an initial sc...

International students are an important element of the Australian university population. Many of these students are living away from family networks which can lead to emotional and financial vulnerability. Young people and those from culturally and linguistically diverse background are known to be vulnerable to gambling harm. This report examines g...

International students are an important element of the Australian university population. Many of these students are living away from family networks which can lead to emotional and financial vulnerability. Young people and those from culturally and linguistically diverse background are known to be vulnerable to gambling harm. This summary report pr...