Brief alcohol intervention for general hospital inpatients: A randomized controlled trial
Section snippets
Background
Hospitalization for alcohol-associated injury or disease provides a “teachable moment” due to increased motivation to change drinking (Longabaugh et al., 1995, Rumpf et al., 1999), suggesting that brief alcohol interventions (BAI) might reduce drinking in general hospital patients. However, while BAI are effective in reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems in outpatient primary care settings (Bien et al., 1993, Ashenden et al., 1997, Bertholet et al., 2005, D’Onofrio and
Recruitment
This paper reports findings of the randomized controlled trial “Implementing early intervention for alcohol misuse in the general hospital” (registered in ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00423904), conducted by the Research Collaboration on Early Substance Use Intervention (EARLINT) between 28-04-2002 and 30-06-2004. The local ethics committee of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University of Greifswald approved of the study. Data were collected at four general hospitals in Western Pomerania in Northeastern
Sample description
The flow-chart according to the CONSORT statement (Moher et al., 2001) is presented in Fig. 1. A total of 14,332 patients were screened. For 20% (n = 2924) of these, a positive screening result was identified on at least one of the two measures. Of these, 80% (n = 2337) agreed to participate in a diagnostic interview. A total of 1281 patients met criteria for AD, AA, AR or HE in the past year. Individuals with AD (n = 599) were excluded from the following analyses. Of the remaining 682 non-alcohol
Discussion
The study's aim was to investigate the effectiveness of a MI based brief intervention among non-alcohol dependent general hospital inpatients with alcohol problems. Two ways of delivery were tested: motivational counselling by a specialized liaison service or by hospital physicians.
At follow-up no significant differences in alcohol consumption and related problems were found between the intervention groups and the controls, indicating that the intervention had no effect regarding alcohol use.
Conflict of interest statement
All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Christine Pockrandt, Birgit Hartmann and Katrin Stegemann for data collection, the medical and nursing staff of the University Hospital Greifswald (Prof. Dr. A. Ekkernkamp, Prof. Dr. S. Felix, Prof. Dr. C.-D. Heidecke, Prof. Dr. W. Hosemann, Prof. Dr. M. Juenger, Prof. Dr. G. Kraatz), of the Hanse Hospital Stralsund (Dr. M. Bartelt, Prof. Dr. T. Ittel, Prof. Dr. J. Kasch, PD Dr. M. Knoop, Dr. G. Langhans), and of the District Hospitals Demmin (Dr. B. Parnitzke, PD Dr.
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