A Feasibility Study to Direct System Level Change for Hospital Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder

The purpose of this feasibility study was to make system level change using motivational interviewing (MI), tailored discharge education, and electronic medical record (EMR) flow sheet intervention in patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Alcohol is known to be one of the most commonly misused addictive substances.

It is a feasibility study with a descriptive exploratory design of an intervention with MI, tailored discharge education, and EMR flow sheet documentation. Participants were patients with AUD chosen over 3 months from two medical surgical floors. Instruments used were the readiness and confidence rulers (reliability/validity = .84 and .77, respectively). Analysis included descriptive statistics, estimation of effect size, and hypothesis generation.

Of 14 participants, EMR flow sheet documentation was completed and the mean post readiness and confidence scores were 8.86 (1.167) and 8.07 (1.639), respectively.

The pre/post confidence scores were statistically significant (p = .095) using the .10 significance level, indicating the intervention was effective in raising the confidence level for behavior change. High scores indicated patients were in contemplation and intending to change. Seven scores increased postintervention suggesting a future hypothesis that MI, tailored education, and EMR flow sheet documentation intervention is feasible for patients with AUD contemplating change in the near future.