{"doi":"10.31219/osf.io/469xw","title":"Acceptability and feasibility of using the BACtrack Skyn wrist-worn transdermal alcohol concentration sensor to capture alcohol use under naturalistic conditions","abstract":"Background: Wrist-worn transdermal alcohol concentration (TAC) sensors have the potential to provide detailed information about day-level features of alcohol use, but have rarely been used in field-based research. This study assessed the acceptability, user burden, and feasibility of using the BACtrack Skyn across 28-days in individuals’ natural settings. Methods: A total of 11 adults aged 26-37 (Mage = 31.2, 55% female, 73% non-Hispanic white) participated in a study including retrospective surveys, a 28-day field protocol wearing Skyn and SCRAM sensors and completing ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of alcohol use and duration (daily morning reports and participant-initiated start/stop drinking EMAs), and follow-up interviews. Five day-level features of alcohol use were extracted: peak TAC, area under the curve (AUC), drinking duration, rise rate, and fall rate. Repeated-measures correlations (rrm) tested within-person associations between day-level features of alcohol use from the Skyn versus self-report or the SCRAM.Results: Participants preferred wearing the Skyn over the SCRAM (t(10)=-6.79, p < .001, d=2.74). Skyn data were available for 5,614 (74.2%) out of 7,566 hours, with 20.7% of data lost due to syncing/charging issues and 5.1% lost due to device removal. Skyn sensitivity for detecting drinking days was 57.6% and 70.3% when compared to self-report and the SCRAM, respectively. Skyn correlations with self-report were smaller than SCRAM correlations with self-report for peak TAC (rrm=0.36 and 0.77, respectively) and AUC (rrm=0.52 and 0.77, respectively) and were larger for drinking duration (rrm=0.38 and 0.31, respectively). The Skyn showed moderate-to-large, significant correlations with the SCRAM for peak TAC (rrm=0.54), AUC (rrm=0.80), and drinking duration (rrm=0.63). Conclusions: Our findings support the acceptability and feasibility of using the Skyn for assessing alcohol use across an extended timeframe (i.e., 28-days) in individuals’ natural settings, and for providing useful information about day-level features of alcohol use.","journal":"OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)","year":2022,"id":308968,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9594,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":304796,"name":"Michael A. Russell","orcid":"0000-0002-3956-604X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":225311,"name":"David E. Conroy","orcid":"0000-0003-0204-4093","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557060,"name":"Jimikaye B. Courtney","orcid":"0000-0002-4609-4984","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:07.132912Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}