Telephone counseling might be an effective primary care intervention for men who are not seeking treatment for their alcohol dependence or abuse, according to a new study.
Men benefited more from the short-term telephone counseling used in the study, which appears in the August issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Lead researcher Richard Brown, M.D., said that the study could empower time-strapped doctors to persuade reluctant alcoholism patients to seek treatment.
“The study shows that we shouldn't just give up on those alcohol-dependent patients who cannot or choose not to get treatment. If we can identify these folks in primary care waiting rooms and provide telephone counseling … we can start to help many of these patients,” said Brown, of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
The researchers looked at nearly 900 men and women with alcohol abuse or dependence, recruiting study participants from primary care clinic waiting rooms in Madison and Milwaukee. The 445 people in the experimental group received up to six protocol-based phone interventions from counselors trained in a technique called motivational interviewing. The 452 members of the control group received a short pamphlet on healthy lifestyles.
Enrollment in the study was voluntary, and the researchers paid patients a small fee at each step; no participant earned more than $125. Members of the experimental group had assigned counselors who helped them identify their goals and examine how their alcohol use affected the achievement of those goals. Counselors gave feedback on the pitfalls and ramifications of alcohol use.
“Getting patients to participate in the counseling sessions was actually much easier than we thought it would be,” Brown said. “Once they had established rapport with that counselor over the phone, many patients really looked forward to their sessions.”