The effect of brief interventions on alcohol consumption among heavy drinkers in a general hospital setting

Abstract

Brief interventions delivered in hospital offer simple means of helping heavy drinkers to reduce their alcohol consumption.

Alcohol education and training in pre-registration nursing: A national survey to determine curriculum content in the United Kingdom (UK)

“…Whilst some Universities' are providing alcohol education the focus of this in many instances appears to be related to physiology, aetiology and pharmacology. The evidence suggests that there is a need for health care professionals to be skilled in alcohol assessment, screening and brief interventions (Watson et al 2010, Holloway et al 2007 and one can conclude that in some instances the curriculum content is not addressing all key elements that will equip future registrants to address patients and clients with alcohol related harm. Furthermore, given the key global and public health alcohol related issues it is important that the content of alcohol education within pre-registration nursing curriculum is evidence based, up to date, contemporary and grounded in a skills based approach (WHO 2011, Gill & O'May 2011, Watson et al 2011.…”

“…In recent years, for non-specialist nurses, the role in the delivery of interventions has focused on prevention and treatment of alcohol-related harm through the delivery of Screening and Brief Interventions (SBIs). Such screening and brief interventions can be delivered by nurses in a variety of health care settings such as primary care (Lock et al 2002;Kaner et al 2007;Solberg et al 2008), general hospital (Holloway et al 2007), Accident & Emergency (A/E) ), criminal justice (Newbury-Birch et al 2009) and occupational health (Watson et al 2009). …”

Severity of unhealthy alcohol consumption in medical inpatients and the general population: is the general hospital a suitable place for brief interventions?

“…In part, lack of effectivity of BI in GH settings might be due to more severe patterns of unhealthy alcohol consumption in GH patients. Recently, published trials give evidence for the efficacy of BI in GH settings when alcohol-dependent individuals are excluded (Freyer et al 2007;Holloway et al 2007). However, only little is known about the proportion of nondependent at-risk drinkers that can be reached in this setting.…”

Effectiveness of a nurse-led alcohol liaison service in a secondary care medical unit

“…Provision of appropriate support and counselling in the accident and emergency setting or in primary care can reduce alcohol intake by approximately 30% and if hospital inpatients are screened for excess alcohol use then brief interventions are effective in reducing alcohol intake. 5,9 Brief interventions have been shown to be effective in primary care in patients of all ages although all these populations showed relatively low levels of alcohol dependence. 10,11 The populations of patients encountered by hospital medical and particularly hepatology teams, however, are likely to have established physical disease with long drinking histories.…”