Text messages aimed at encouraging men to think carefully about their drinking habits will be used in a major study into binge drinking.
Researchers at Dundee University want to recruit around 700 men aged between 25 and 44 across the Tayside, Fife, Forth Valley and Greater Glasgow areas.
The volunteers will receive regular text messages for three months, encouraging them to think about what they are drinking and why.
Researchers will then interview the men to assess whether their alcohol consumption has changed.
They will be asked again after a further nine months whether there has been any longer-term change in behaviour.
"We are hoping to work with men who have settled into a drinking pattern where they will have consumed more than eight units of alcohol on two occasions in the previous month. The standard definition of binge drinking is eight units in a session," said Professor Iain Crombie, of the Centre for Biomedical Sciences and Public Health at the University of Dundee.
"The basic idea is not to preach to them or tell them what they do. What the messaging in this study will do is encourage them to think about what they are drinking, why they do it, and about how it fits with the rest of their lives."
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