Latest alcohol analyses
 Latest alcohol analyses

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Latest alcohol analyses

Ten most recently added/updated alcohol-related Effectiveness Bank analyses compiled for our partner Alcohol Change UK, starting with the analyses most recently added or updated.

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REVIEW 2018 HTM file
Effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions in primary care populations

Kaner EFS., Beyer FR., Muirhead C. et al.
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018
Update of a key document forming the basis of claims that brief interventions work in ‘real-world’ settings. Combined findings from randomised trials confirm that brief advice in primary care can reduce drinking, but will those reductions be realised in contemporary routine practice?

STUDY 1977 HTM file
Effect of counselor expectations on alcoholic recovery

Leake G.J., King A.S.
Alcohol Health & Research World: 1977, 1, p. 16–22.
Could negativity about the recovery chances of disadvantaged drinkers become self-fulfilling prophecies? This hidden gem study from the late ’70s suggests they can, and that bolstering counsellors’ expectations promotes commitment to treatment and recovery among the least promising of clients.

REVIEW 2020 HTM file
Controlled drinking – non-abstinent versus abstinent treatment goals in alcohol use disorder: a systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression

Henssler J., Müller M., Carreira H. et al.
Addiction: 2020, early view
Comprehensive review and amalgamation of findings from studies enabling a comparison of controlled drinking versus abstinence as treatment goals concludes that even among diagnosably dependent drinkers, neither has the advantage in promoting low-risk (non-)drinking.

HOT TOPIC 2021 HTM file
‘Dangerous data’: drinking after dependence

Ashton M.
First cracked in 1960s London, the orthodoxy that abstinence is the only feasible treatment goal for ‘alcoholics’ seemed shattered in 1973 by evidence that even physically dependent patients could learn to drink in moderation. Controversy was fierce, reaching the US Congress, TV networks and the courts. Explore the history and contested research behind an issue facing every dependent drinker starting treatment.

MATRIX CELL 2021 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell E5: Treatment systems; Safeguarding the community

Ashton M.
Key studies on local, regional and national systems for treatment in criminal justice settings and/or to benefit the community. A review argues that despite radically different starting points, criminal justice and treatment must collaborate to deliver treatment. Question its key ingredients for collaboration, ask yourself how far collaboration should go, and ponder why problem drinking is so prominent among prisoners, yet not among prison services.

MATRIX CELL 2021 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell D5: Organisational functioning; Safeguarding the community

Ashton M.
Key studies on organisational influences on alcohol treatment where the main aim or a major outcome is to reduce crime or otherwise safeguard the community. In the context of a market which drives treatment organisations to expand, asks, “Is small beautiful?”, explores the implications of focusing treatment on the family rather than the patient, and finds signs that control responsibilities can undermine therapeutic quality.

MATRIX CELL 2021 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell A5: Interventions; Safeguarding the community

Ashton M.
Key studies on the impact of alcohol treatment on the community including families, children and crime. Explores the core contradiction between punishment and rehabilitation, asks whether this accounts for the poor record of criminal justice treatment, highlights the most robust test yet of brief alcohol counselling in probation, asks whether it can ever be safe to leave children with severely dependent drinkers, and recounts the alleged deception at the heart of a recommended treatment method.

MATRIX CELL 2021 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell C5: Management/supervision; Safeguarding the community

Ashton M.
Seminal and key studies on the role of management and supervision in relation to treatment in criminal justice settings and/or for the purpose of safeguarding the community. Just as for the practitioners, for managers the ‘tricky’ challenge is to extract therapeutic benefit out of a coercive, punishment-oriented context.

MATRIX CELL 2021 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell B5: Practitioners; Safeguarding the community

Ashton M.
Key studies on the impact of the treatment practitioner on safeguarding the community, families and children, and their influence in criminal justice contexts. Explores whether exceptional abilities are needed to forge productive therapeutic relationships in these situations, and invites you to ‘stress test’ a proposed universal rule: The trickier the situation, the more the worker matters.

STUDY 2019 HTM file
Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement: A review of process and performance from Year 2

Hobson Z., Harrison A., Duckworth L.
Mayor of London Office for Policing and Crime, 2018
What difference could ‘court-ordered sobriety’ make to people committing alcohol-related offences? Two-year study in London boroughs gives a sense of what to expect before a national rollout of the programme in 2020.