Brief alcohol intervention at a municipal registry office: reach and retention

Abstract

Background The aim was to investigate the suitability of a municipal registry office for alcohol screening and brief intervention. We analyzed whether trial participation and retention differ by alcohol- and health-related, demographic and socio-economic participant characteristics. Methods Over 3 months, all 18- to 64-year-old visitors of a registry office were systematically screened. Persons with alcohol consumption in the past 12 months (N = 1646) were randomized to brief alcohol intervention (BAI) or assessment only. BAI was delivered by computer-generated individualized feedback letters at baseline, 3 and 6 months. Logistic and ordered logistic regression models were used to investigate whether the odds of trial participation and retention depended on participant characteristics. Models were rerun separately for low-risk and at-risk drinkers with Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test-Consumption scores ≥4/≥5 for women/men indicating at-risk drinking. Results The trial participation rate was 67% with higher odds of participation in younger adults (P < 0.001). Retention rates at 3 and 6 months were 85% and 81%, respectively. Higher retention was associated with older age, higher level of school education and non-smoking (all p-values ≤0.05). Low-risk drinkers were more likely to participate in the trial (P < 0.01) and in post-baseline assessments (P < 0.05) than at-risk drinkers. Conclusion Our data suggest that registry offices could be a suitable setting to reach people from the general population for BAI. Especially the understudied group of low-risk drinkers was well reached through BAI and showed high adherence. BAI that addresses alcohol consumers beyond those at risk may be well accepted in proactively recruited people from the general population.

Willingness to Participate in Alcohol Prevention Interventions Targeting Risky Drinking Employees. The WIRUS Project

“…None of the sociodemographic variables (age, gender, educational attainment, marital status, living status, having children, having children in household, yearly household income) was significantly associated with willingness to participate. Some studies have found that younger individuals are more prone to participate in alcohol interventions than older individuals (35,36,38). However, we did not find such an association.…”

“…As such, one may assume that willing and unwilling employees were not systematically different with regard to how much they drank, how they construed drinking in general as well as work-related drinking more specifically, and what effects they expected alcohol to produce. These findings are in line with previous studies that have revealed no systematic differences in terms of intervention participation based on weekly consumption and frequency of heavy episodic drinking (35), overall alcohol use and consequences (36), typical number of drinks per week (38), or blood alcohol concentration (37). We did, however, find that those willing to participate reported less alcohol-related presenteeism, i.e., occurrences of episodes where on-the-job performance have been thwarted by alcohol consumption.…”

“…Approximately 4 out of 10 eligible employees were willing to participate. This participation rate is considerably lower than rates demonstrated among trauma patients in the USA (60.8%; brief face-to-face intervention delivered by health care personnel) (37), regular drinkers in a German general population sample (67.0%; digital intervention with computer-generated feedback) (38), and risky drinking hospital inpatients in Germany (81.0%; digital intervention with computer-generated individualized feedback, and face-to-face intervention delivered by health care personnel) (36). Yet, the participation rate in our study is quite comparable with the rate found among emergency department patients in Sweden (41.0%; computerized intervention) which, according to the authors of the Swedish study, represented an acceptable reach (35).…”

“…However, we did not find such an association. In studies of hospital patients and visitors of a registry office in Germany (36,38), individuals with higher education were found to be more willing to participate, compared to their lower education counterparts. However, and in line with a study of Swedish patients (35), we did not find any differences in willingness to participate in alcohol prevention interventions based on educational attainment.…”

“…In line with earlier studies on willingness to participate in alcohol prevention interventions (35)(36)(37)(38), a set of sociodemographic and alcohol-related variables was included as potential correlates.…”