Effects of two types of brief intervention and readiness to change on alcohol use in hazardous drinkers

Objective: Brief interventions for hazardous and low-dependent drinkers in the primary care setting have considerable empirical support. The purpose o f this study was to (1) evaluate the effects of brief advice (BA) and motiv ational enhancement (ME) interventions on alcohol consumption. In addition, a hindsight matching design was used to (2) study the moderator effects of patient readiness to change (alcohol use) on alcohol consumption. Method: The subjects (N = 301, 70% men) were patients 21 years of age or older who presented for treatment at one of 12 primary care clinics. After screening for eligibility and providing consent to participate in the study, the pati ents completed a baseline assessment and were randomly assigned to the BA, ME or standard care (SC) interventions condition. Follow-up assessments wer e completed at 1-, 3-, 6-, 9- and 12-months postbaseline assessment. Result s: Evaluation of the first hypothesis (n = 232 for these analyses) showed t hat all participants tended to reduce their alcohol use considerably betwee n the baseline and 12-month assessments. In addition, evaluation of the sec ond hypothesis showed a moderator effect of readiness to change in predicti ng the number of drinks at 12 months, such that the BA intervention seemed more effective for patients relatively low in readiness to change compared to those higher in readiness. Readiness to change did not seem to be relate d to changes in drinking of participants in the SC or ME conditions. Conclu sions: The results confirm that, among primary care patients, substantial c hanges in alcohol consumption are possible. They further suggest that match ing studies of patient readiness to change their alcohol use, as well as ot her variables, are warranted.