[General hospital patients with alcohol problems welcome counselling]

The aim of this study was to determine predictors for openness to alcohol-related counselling among general hospital patients with alcohol problems. We wanted to test whether those with less severe alcohol problems and those with a lack of motivation for behaviour charge or with a lack of motivation to seek help would agree to participate in alcohol-related counselling.

A total of 1150 hospital patients with alcohol dependence, alcohol abuse, at-risk drinking or excessive drinking were interviewed. They were asked about their attitude towards alcohol-related counselling, about their motivation to change their drinking and about their motivation to seek professional help. A multi-variable logistic regression analysis was calculated to determine predictors for agreement to counselling.

A total of 66 % of all participants agreed to receive information on professional help and on how they could help themselves. Among these were 77 % of the alcohol dependent participants and 56 % of the non-dependent participants. Motivation to change and motivation to seek help were identified as the most significant predictors for agreement to counselling. However, 63 % of the participants open for counselling were not yet ready to change their habits and 62 % were not yet ready to seek profession help.

The majority of hospital patients with less severe alcohol problems as well as the majority of hospital patients not ready to seek more intensive professional help were open for alcohol-related counselling. Given a systematic screening, this opens up the opportunity for addiction counsellors, hospital physicians or nurses to actively offer counselling.