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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2014 Jun 25;9(6):e99463.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099463. eCollection 2014.

The effectiveness of alcohol screening and brief intervention in emergency departments: a multicentre pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial

Colin Drummond  1 , Paolo Deluca  1 , Simon Coulton  2 , Martin Bland  3 , Paul Cassidy  4 , Mike Crawford  5 , Veronica Dale  3 , Eilish Gilvarry  6 , Christine Godfrey  3 , Nick Heather  7 , Ruth McGovern  8 , Judy Myles  1 , Dorothy Newbury-Birch  8 , Adenekan Oyefeso  9 , Steve Parrott  3 , Robert Patton  1 , Katherine Perryman  1 , Tom Phillips  10 , Jonathan Shepherd  11 , Robin Touquet  12 , Eileen Kaner  8
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

The effectiveness of alcohol screening and brief intervention in emergency departments: a multicentre pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial

Colin Drummond et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Alcohol misuse is common in people attending emergency departments (EDs) and there is some evidence of efficacy of alcohol screening and brief interventions (SBI). This study investigated the effectiveness of SBI approaches of different intensities delivered by ED staff in nine typical EDs in England: the SIPS ED trial.

Methods and findings: Pragmatic multicentre cluster randomized controlled trial of SBI for hazardous and harmful drinkers presenting to ED. Nine EDs were randomized to three conditions: a patient information leaflet (PIL), 5 minutes of brief advice (BA), and referral to an alcohol health worker who provided 20 minutes of brief lifestyle counseling (BLC). The primary outcome measure was the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) status at 6 months. Of 5899 patients aged 18 or more presenting to EDs, 3737 (63·3%) were eligible to participate and 1497 (40·1%) screened positive for hazardous or harmful drinking, of whom 1204 (80·4%) gave consent to participate in the trial. Follow up rates were 72% (n = 863) at six, and 67% (n = 810) at 12 months. There was no evidence of any differences between intervention conditions for AUDIT status or any other outcome measures at months 6 or 12 in an intention to treat analysis. At month 6, compared to the PIL group, the odds ratio of being AUDIT negative for brief advice was 1·103 (95% CI 0·328 to 3·715). The odds ratio comparing BLC to PIL was 1·247 (95% CI 0·315 to 4·939). A per protocol analysis confirmed these findings.

Conclusions: SBI is difficult to implement in typical EDs. The results do not support widespread implementation of alcohol SBI in ED beyond screening followed by simple clinical feedback and alcohol information, which is likely to be easier and less expensive to implement than more complex interventions.

Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN 93681536.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: All authors had financial support from the Department of Health in England (Alcohol Policy Unit) for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

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Figure 1. Consort Diagram.
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