Effectiveness Bank alert. Bulletin 18 August 2015

Effectiveness Bank bulletin 18 August 2015

Official UK heath advisory body pulls together its alcohol guidance, which does not recommend baclofen treatment, though a German trial found substantial abstinence-promoting effects. The guidance does favour brief interventions, which could be a cost-saving bargain for England. Real-world US evidence that offenders injected with a long-acting opiate-blocker are more likely to achieve abstinence than in other treatments.

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Official UK aid to decisions on alcohol prevention and treatment

Online flowcharts from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guide planners and practitioners dealing with alcohol use disorders through choices of strategies and interventions on prevention, screening and brief advice, treatment, and care of associated medical conditions.

REVISED Drug triples post-detoxification alcohol abstinence rate

From Germany the first trial to rigorously test high doses of the muscle relaxant baclofen for the treatment of dependent drinking found post-detoxification drinking reductions of a magnitude rarely seen; serious safety concerns remain.

Alcohol brief interventions seem bargain for England

Implications of this simulation study for England are that health planners would be irrational not to arrange for GP practices to screen every adult patient for hazardous drinking – but how valid are the assumptions behind estimated health cost-savings and health improvements?

Also see hot topic on public health impacts of brief alcohol interventions.

High abstinence rate among offenders injected with long-acting opiate-blocker

Treatment records in the US state of Missouri showed that problem substance using offenders allocated to or who chose to be injected with long-acting injectable naltrexone were much more likely to have achieved abstinence at discharge than those in other kinds of addiction treatment.

Also see hot topic on long-acting naltrexone.

Also added to the Effectiveness Bank

Intensive coaching in parenting works for mums in residential treatment

Chronic disease model promotes feelings of being helpless to recover

US college students drank less after online risk-reduction programme

Playing sports linked with more drinking but less illicit drug use

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Sent by the Drug and Alcohol Findings Effectiveness Bank to alert you to site updates and UK-relevant evaluations of drug/alcohol interventions. Findings is supported by Alcohol Research UK and the Society for the Study of Addiction and advised by the National Addiction Centre and the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals.