Using brief interventions following alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes to reduce drinking and further injury.

This study is designed to determine if brief intervention strategies are effective in reducing alcohol intake and future injuries in non-alcohol-dependent young adults injured in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes (MVCs). Investigators are in the process of enrolling a total of 120 subjects from trauma services at two regional hospitals with 40 subjects in each of three groups. The study uses an experimental design with a Control Group (C) and two experimental groups, Simple Advice (SA) and Brief counselling (BC). The SA group receives a health interview plus 5 minutes of advice about the importance of sensible drinking or abstinence. The BC group receives a health interview plus 5 minutes of advice and 15 minutes of additional counselling on personal problem-solving strategies. Alcohol consumption is being quantified by the Timeline Followback method with data collection points at 3, 6, and 12 months after injury. Alcohol-related driving events and alcohol-related injuries are determined from data contained in driver abstracts, self- report, and hospital records. Preliminary results show that subjects with the most intensive intervention decreased their drinking from 5.59 drinks per drinking day at baseline to 3.05 drinks per drinking day at 12 months and 5.74 binges per month at baseline to 1.52 binges per month at 12 months. Preliminary findings show that the BC intervention may be effective in reducing drinking in the first 12 months following an alcohol-related injury.