NCT00443183

Emergency Physician Brief Interventions for Alcohol

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 500 (actual)
• Sponsor: Yale University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Patients with hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption are at increased risk for adverse health consequences and have frequent visits to the Emergency Department(ED). Despite research that has demonstrated the prevalence of alcohol problems in ED patients, there are limited data on the effectiveness of brief intervention (BI) strategies for patients in this setting. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief intervention, termed Brief Negotiation Interview (BNI), provided by emergency practitioners (EPs-emergency physicians and physician assistants), in reducing alcohol consumption in ED patients with hazardous and harmful drinking. In a controlled randomized clinical trial of 500 patients with hazardous and harmful drinking, BNI will be compared to scripted discharge instructions (DI). Three hypotheses will be tested: BNI is superior to DI in: 1) reducing alcohol consumption; 2) reducing the number of binge drinking episodes; and 3) increasing utilization of primary care or alcohol-related services. Alcohol consumption and utilization of primary care or alcohol-related services will be measured by self-report at 1,6 and 12 months. An additional benefit to changing patterns of consumption and utilization of health services may be decreased ED visits and alcohol-related hospitalizations. These will be assessed utilizing a statewide database. In order to facilitate real-world application of BNI in the ED, the project will result in a BNI manual for EPs and an adherence and competence scale. Unique features of the current project as compared to earlier studies include: 1)use of a credible control condition; 2) enrollment of a heterogeneous population; 3)use of a manual-guided intervention by existing ED staff; 4)systematic assessment of adherence and competence to ensure quality administration and discriminability of interventions; 5)monitoring of use of ancillary treatments; and 6)monitoring of repeat ED visits and alcohol-related hospitalizations.

Conditions

• Harmful Drinking
• Hazardous Drinking

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Brief Negotiation Interview (BNI)	The Brief Negotiation Interview is a manual guided intervention using techniques based on motivational interviewing, brief advice, and behavioral contracting and is designed to be delivered in less than 10 minutes.
BEHAVIORAL	Discharge Instructions	Used as a placebo comparator, scripted discharge instructions are to be read by emergency practitioner and designed to be less than 1 minute in length.

Timeline

• Start date: 2002-05-01
• Primary completion: 2004-11-01
• Completion: 2004-11-01
• First posted: 2007-03-05
• Last updated: 2020-03-30

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States