Heavy alcohol use and alcohol use disorders in psychiatric patients are associated with poor psychiatric outcomes including suicide, and interfere with psychiatric treatments. Psychiatric residents receive limited education on how to evaluate and treat alcohol use in their patients, and most psychiatric training programs do not have an educator who has specialty training in addictions. Furthermore, there is no evidence-based standardized curriculum available to psychiatry residency training programs to educate residents about alcohol use and psychiatric illness in their patients. The primary objective of thi R25 educational grant application is to develop and evaluate the first web-based curriculum for psychiatry training programs to teach psychiatry residents about (1) the association between heavy alcohol use and psychiatric problems like suicide and mental disorders, (2) biological effects of alcohol on psychiatric symptoms, (3) interactions between alcohol and pharmacologic treatments of mental disorders, (4) methods of screening psychiatric patients for alcohol use and (5) methods of brief intervention, motivational interviewing, pharmacologic treatments, and referral to help patients reduce their alcohol use. This project is unique in that it will develop nd evaluate the first web-based alcohol educational program specifically designed for psychiatry residents that can be integrated into psychiatry residency training curricula. Exposure to this web-based program will increase psychiatric resident knowledge and skills at identifying and intervening with their patients who drink too much.
Heavy alcohol use and alcohol use disorders in psychiatric patients are associated with poor psychiatric outcomes, including suicide, and interfere with psychiatric treatments. This program will provide the first online evidence-based alcohol education curriculum for psychiatry residents that can be integrated into psychiatric training programs. The web-based modules developed in this project will increase psychiatrists'knowledge and skills at identifying and treating heavy drinking psychiatric patients. This in turn will further help people who drink too much.
