Interventions for Increasing Subsequent Alcohol Treatment Utilisation Among Patients with Alcohol Use Disorders from...

Alcohol Use Disorders (AUDs) are common in medical and surgical hospital wards. Brief Interventions (BIs) for reducing alcohol use and consequences are generally inefficacious in this population. Because there is evidence that receipt of formal treatment could be useful, we performed a systematic review to determine efficacious interventions for increasing subsequent alcohol treatment from these settings.

A systematic literature search of articles published prior to December 2013 to identify articles describing randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in three electronic databases: PubMed, PsycINFO and The Cochrane Library. Data were extracted independently by one reviewer and were checked by a second reviewer. Because of heterogeneity between study groups in treatment utilisation during the follow-up, a meta-analysis was considered inappropriate and a qualitative synthesis was conducted.

From the 5030 identified records, only 5 RCTs, including 1113 patients with AUDs, met inclusion criteria. No evidence of efficacy in increasing subsequent treatment utilisation was reported for inpatient BIs alone, but interventions with post-discharge sessions might be beneficial. Increased treatment utilisation was generally associated with favourable drinking outcomes.

Given the small number of included studies and the presence of several alternative methodological explanations for the present findings, no firm conclusions could be drawn on efficacious interventions for increasing subsequent treatment utilisation among somatic inpatients with AUDs. However the findings support efforts to explore this under-researched area.