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Updated: Jul 3, 2026
Chronic Intermittent Ethanol Vapor Exposure Paired with Two-Bottle Choice to Model Alcohol Use Disorder
Published on: June 23, 2023
Alcohol counseling reflects higher quality of primary care
Richard Saitz1, Nicholas J Horton, Debbie M Cheng
1Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit, Section of General Internal Medicine, Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, USA. rsaitz@bu.edu
Background:
Some primary care physicians do not conduct alcohol screening because they assume their patients do not want to discuss alcohol use.
Objectives:
To assess whether (1) alcohol counseling can improve patient-perceived quality of primary care, and (2) higher quality of primary care is associated with subsequent decreased alcohol consumption.
Design:
A prospective cohort study.
Subjects:
Two hundred eighty-eight patients in an academic primary care practice who had unhealthy alcohol use.
Measurements:
The primary outcome was quality of care received [measured with the communication, whole-person knowledge, and trust scales of the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS)]. The secondary outcome was drinking risky amounts in the past 30 days (measured with the Timeline Followback method).
Results:
Alcohol counseling was significantly associated with higher quality of primary care in the areas of communication (adjusted mean PCAS scale scores: 85 vs. 76) and whole-person knowledge (67 vs. 59). The quality of primary care was not associated with drinking risky amounts 6 months later.
Conclusions:
Although quality of primary care may not necessarily affect drinking, brief counseling for unhealthy alcohol use may enhance the quality of primary care.
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