Published in the scientific journal ‘Addiction’, the findings suggest that structured, one-to-one, short conversations about drinking, designed to motivate changes in risky behaviour, when delivered in doctors’ offices and similar medical settings, might produce small but useful reductions in drinking.

Alcohol-targeted brief interventions yielded small beneficial effects on alcohol use, equivalent to a reduction in 1 drinking day per month. Interestingly, the findings were inconclusive for brief interventions delivered in the emergency department/trauma centres but were effective when delivered in other general medical settings (e.g., a primary care clinic).

There was limited evidence regarding the effects of drug-targeted brief interventions on drug use. Lead author Emily Tanner-Smith comments: “A reduction of one drinking day per month may not sound like much, but small individual reductions can add up to a substantial reduction in population-level harms. Given their brevity, low cost, and minimal clinician effort, brief interventions may be a promising way to reduce alcohol use, one patient at a time.” ­­­