Effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions in primary care populations

Abstract

We found moderate-quality evidence that brief interventions can reduce alcohol consumption in hazardous and harmful drinkers compared to minimal or no intervention. Longer counselling duration probably has little additional effect. Future studies should focus on identifying the components of interventions which are most closely associated with effectiveness.

Sex based subgroup differences in randomized controlled trials: empirical evidence from Cochrane meta-analyses

“…Therefore to avoid redundancy we devised criteria to prevent the same data from being included across multiple analyses. When a single meta-analysis presented forest plots evaluating sex-treatment interactions with identical or nearly identical outcomes on the same intervention, we only selected one comparison (eg, frequency of drinking measured as quantity of drinking in grams per week, frequency of drinking measured as the number days drinking per week, and intensity of drinking measured as the number of grams per drinking day were deemed to be nearly identical and thus correlated outcomes 24 ). When the population, outcome, or eligibility criteria for one eligible analysis was a subset of the population, outcome, or eligibility criteria from a separate forest plot representing a similar yet broader meta-analysis, we selected the primary analysis described in the text of the article (eg, we selected the outcome of "incidence lung cancer" because it was a primary outcome and a subset of "incidence of all cancers," which was excluded 25 ).…”

Alcohol Consumption, Hypertension, and Cardiovascular Health Across the Life Course: There Is No Such Thing as a One‐Size‐Fits‐All Approach

“…This is perhaps one of the reasons why clinicians may be reluctant to inquire about, or provide advice on, alcohol consumption in primary care, even in situations where it might be beneficial to do so 12. For example, barely a of quarter of individuals in the United States presenting to their general practitioner with hypertension are recommended to reduce their alcohol intake as a nonpharmacological means of controlling their blood pressure 13.…”

A systematic review of the effectiveness of alcohol brief interventions for the UK military personnel moving back to civilian life

“…Screening the adult population for harmful levels of drinking and providing feedback and brief advice has been shown to result in a reduction in the amount consumed in a proportion of people 12 13. The 10 question Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) is seen as the gold standard for alcohol screening 14.…”