Working with practitioners to reduce alcohol related harm – embedding brief interventions in Victorian general practices
Investigators: Dr Liz Sturgiss, Prof Grant Russel, Prof Danielle Mazza, Lauren Ball, Renee O’Donnell, Helen Skouteris, Prof Suzanne Nielsen, Dr Tina Lam & David Jacka (2019-2021).
This research is supporting General Practitioners in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas to implement brief interventions for risky drinking. Drinking at risky levels has ramifications for the health and wellbeing of Victorians and affects families and the wider community through absenteeism, family violence, assaults, and motor vehicle collisions. Brief interventions in primary care can lead to meaningful reductions in alcohol consumption. There are clear primary care guidelines on how to assess and advise people about their alcohol use, but few primary care practitioners routinely screen and help their patient with alcohol use despite the effectiveness of brief interventions.
Alcohol-related harm is disproportionally higher among low-income groups who are almost twice as likely to experience alcohol-related harm compared to high-income groups. For this reason, the focus of this project will be on developing a clinical approach tailored for people from low-income groups.
MARC member Dr Liz Sturgiss leads the project, with other MARC members on the research team including Prof Grant Russell, A/Prof Suzanne Nielsen and Dr Tina Lam. Collaborating with patients and practitioners, the research team will co-design a new approach to increase the capacity of primary care practitioners to use brief interventions for alcohol. They will seek feedback from low-income patients and clinicians working in low-income communities to develop screening tools for use in the waiting room, clinician prompts within the consultation room, and clinical resources tailored to patient needs.
Project funder
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) - VicHealth Impact Grant
Project partners
A collaboration between the Department of General Practice, MARC, Monash Health and Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation.
Publications
Sturgiss, E., Lam, T., Russell, G., Ball, L., Gunatillaka, N., Barton, C., Tam, C.W., O’Donnell, R., Chacko, E., Skouteris, H., Mazza, D., & Nielsen, S. (2021). Patient and clinician perspectives of factors that influence the delivery of alcohol brief interventions in Australian primary care: a qualitative descriptive study, Family Practice, cmab091. doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmab091