Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access originally published online on November 22, 2005
Alcohol and Alcoholism 2006 41(1):76-83; doi:10.1093/alcalc/agh241
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BRIEF INTERVENTION IN ALCOHOL-POSITIVE TRAFFIC CASUALTIES: IS IT WORTH THE EFFORT?
1 Public Health Agency, Barcelona, Spain and 2 University Hospital Vall d'Hebron, Trauma Area, Barcelona, Spain
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed at: Agència de Salut Pública, Pl Lesseps, 1, 08023-Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: +34 93 238 45 45; Fax: +34 93 217 31 97; E-mail: amartos{at}aspb.es
(Received 15 July 2005; first review notified 7 September 2005; in final revised form 14 October 2005; accepted 24 October 2005)
Aims: This study aimed at testing the effectiveness of a brief motivational intervention (BI) compared with a minimal intervention (MI) for reducing alcohol consumption in adult, alcohol-positive traffic casualties. Methods: Patients were recruited at the emergency room of a trauma hospital and screened for alcohol by a qualitative saliva test (positive from a blood alcohol concentration of 0.02 g/l). Positive patients (13.3%) who accepted entering the study were randomly allocated into BI and MI. Baseline assessment was the same for all patients. Blind telephone follow-ups were performed at months 3, 6, and 12, and results were analysed by protocol and by intention-to-treat analysis. Results: After 1 year of follow-up, 67% of the patients had reduced their consumption, the percentage of heavy drinkers had dropped by 47%, and 62% of baseline AUDIT-C positive patients (hazardous drinkers) had become negative. Binge drinking dropped significantly (P < 0.05). Results at month 12 were in line with the previous ones. Conclusions: The effectiveness of BI compared with MI has not been verified, but a significant reduction in consumption has been observed in the whole sample, without significant differences by type of intervention. The persistence and dimension of changes suggest a real effect of both interventions, although the lack of a pure control group does not allow definitive conclusions. Traffic casualties are in a teachable moments to benefit from easy and cheap interventions.
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