Brief meetings with healthcare workers curb excessive drinking in men

Between one and four standard appointments with a general practitioner or nurse can reduce a patient's alcohol consumption by an average of five standard drink units a week, according to a Cochrane Review.

The effect of brief advice about alcohol is more pronounced in men and a year later, they still had significantly reduced alcohol consumption. There is, however, less evidence that this approach helps curb excessive alcohol intake in women.

Excessive drinking causes poor health and an increased risk of dying, as well as creating many social problems such as violence, accidents and suicide. This occurs in developed and developing countries alike. The World Health Organisation claims that alcohol abuse has a global cost to health that is greater than tobacco. Much of the damage is caused not by people with severe alcohol dependence, but by those who simply drink too much. It is this group of people who are the target for brief interventions that aim at preventing harm.

Performing a systematic review, Cochrane Reviewers identified 28 controlled trials from various countries, which involved more than 7,000 people in total. Participants drank an average of more than 40 standard drink units a week in UK terms (around 320 grams of alcohol) when they entered the trials. People receiving the intervention had one to four sessions that lasted between 5 and 15 minutes with a doctor, or up to 30 minutes with a nurse.

A year after taking part in between one and four short sessions in a primary healthcare setting, men were consuming on average 57 grams per week less alcohol (range 25 to 89g) which is equivalent to 7 UK standard drink units per week (range 11 to 3 units). The benefit for women was not clear because there was much less data for women, furthermore longer treatment regimens seemed to have little additional benefit.

“Future research should focus on women and on working out which elements of the brief interventions had most effect on patients,” says lead author Dr Eileen Kaner who works in the Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University.