Human Services News

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Mailing a simple information pamphlet to interested drinkers in the general population reduced binge drinking by 10 per cent, and is a promising public health approach to reduce the health and social problems associated with heavy drinking, shows a new study led by the University of Alberta.

Brief interventions to help people change their alcohol use have long been recognized as a potentially useful strategy, but past research in this area has focused on college students, problem drinkers screened in clinics and hospitals or people seeking specialized counselling and alcohol rehabilitation treatment.

"While these are important target groups, university students only represent a small fraction of drinkers in the general population who engage in heavy alcohol consumption and get into problems," said Dr. Cameron Wild, lead author of the paper and a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

"As for screening for alcohol problems in health care, busy health care professionals often don't enquire about alcohol problems.

The study, which was jointly conducted with the University of Toronto, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada, provided self-help materials to 877 male and female drinkers (average age 43) who were recruited from the general population.

Alcohol pamphlets mailed to them asked respondents to compare their own drinking to the average male or female in the general Canadian population.

The study results showed that drinkers who initially met a clinical screen for alcohol problems and who later received the brief intervention reported a 10 per cent reduction in binge drinking rates, compared to those who did not receive the pamphlets until the end of the study.

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