A five-year study conducted at Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Medical School has found that hospitals may be able to combat underage drinking by giving youth in the emergency department a short intervention during their visit.
As part of the trial, ED patients ages 14 to 20 who were medically stable and seeking any type of medical care, were screened for risky drinking. Youth who reported risky drinking were then randomly assigned to receive a brief intervention, either from a therapist or an interactive computer program, or were assigned to a control group.
Of the more than 4,300 patients that were screened, 24 percent reported risky drinking behaviors and were assigned to either an intervention group or a control group.
Three months after the ED visit, the rate of alcohol consumption and consequences from drinking was reduced among the patients who received either intervention. In fact, the therapist and computer brief interventions significantly reduced alcohol-related consequences and prescription drug use one year after the ED visit as well.
Additionally, the computer intervention reduced the frequency of driving under the influence after one year, and the therapist intervention reduced the frequency of alcohol-related injuries at one year.
"Emergency department staff is focused on urgent medical care," said Rebecca Cunningham, MD, director of the U-M Injury Center and a U-M professor of emergency medicine and public health. "The finding that the computer program brief intervention helped youth reduce risky drinking is very promising, especially as an approach that is easy for healthcare sites to use without requiring dedicated staff time to administer."