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How primary care providers talk to patients about alcohol a qualitative study

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Alcohol misuse is a common and well-documented source of morbidity and mortality. Brief primary care alcohol counseling has been shown to benefit patients with alcohol misuse.

OBJECTIVE: To describe alcohol-related discussions between primary care providers and patients who screened positive for alcohol misuse.

DESIGN: An exploratory, qualitative analysis of audiotaped primary care visits containing discussions of alcohol use.

PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 29 male outpatients at a Veterans Affairs (VA) General Internal Medicine Clinic who screened positive for alcohol misuse and their 14 primary care providers, all of whom were participating in a larger quality improvement trial.

MEASUREMENTS: Audiotaped visits with any alcohol-related discussion were transcribed and coded using grounded theory and conversation analysis, both qualitative research techniques.

RESULTS: Three themes were identified: (1) patients disclosed information regarding their alcohol use, but providers often did not explore these disclosures; (2) advice about alcohol use was typically vague and/or tentative in contrast to smoking-related advice, which was more common and usually more clear and firm; and (3) discomfort on the part of the provider was evident during alcohol-related discussions.

LIMITATIONS: Generalizability of findings from this single-site VA study is unknown.

CONCLUSION: Findings from this single site study suggest that provider discomfort and avoidance are important barriers to evidence-based brief alcohol counseling. Further investigation into current alcohol counseling practices is needed to determine whether these patterns extend to other primary care settings, and to inform future educational efforts.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Northwest Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA, USA

    Kinsey A. McCormick BA & Katharine A. Bradley MD, MPH

  2. Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Kinsey A. McCormick BA, Anthony L. Back MD, Joseph O. Merrill MD, MPH, Emily C. Williams MPH & Katharine A. Bradley MD, MPH

  3. White River Junction VA Hospital, White River, Junction, VT, USA

    Nancy E. Cochran MD

  4. Department of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, USA

    Nancy E. Cochran MD

  5. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    Joseph O. Merrill MD, MPH

  6. Center of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA, USA

    Emily C. Williams MPH & Katharine A. Bradley MD, MPH

  7. Primary and Specialty Medical Care Service, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA, USA

    Katharine A. Bradley MD, MPH

  8. Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Katharine A. Bradley MD, MPH

Authors
  1. Kinsey A. McCormick BA
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  2. Nancy E. Cochran MD
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  3. Anthony L. Back MD
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  4. Joseph O. Merrill MD, MPH
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  5. Emily C. Williams MPH
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  6. Katharine A. Bradley MD, MPH
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kinsey A. McCormick BA.

Additional information

None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to declare.

The Veterans Affairs (VA) Ambulatory Care Quality Improvement Project (ACQUIP) was funded by VA HSR&D Grants #SDR96-002 and IIR99-376. Dr. Bradley is an investigator at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, is currently supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA #K23AA00313), and was a Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar at the time of this work. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the University of Washington, the NIAAA, or the RWJ Foundation.

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McCormick, K.A., Cochran, N.E., Back, A.L. et al. How primary care providers talk to patients about alcohol a qualitative study. J GEN INTERN MED 21, 966–972 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02743146

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02743146

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