The research focuses on three primary questions concerning injured patients with hazardous drinking who are treated in a hospital emergency department setting: (1) which, if any, of two brief interventions will decrease subsequent alcohol-related negative consequences compared to standard clinical practice? (2) are certain kinds of interventions more effective for certain kinds of patients (i.e., is there an interaction between type of intervention and prognostic variable)? and (3) what are the active ingredients of a successful interaction, and how do they interact with aspects of the injury event which brings the patient to the ED? To address these questions, 740 patients presenting for treatment and discharged from the emergency department of Rhode Island Hospital, Rhode Island's Level 1 Trauma Center, will be recruited for study who are alcohol positive by self-report or BAC, and/or have a self-reported history of hazardous drinking. They will be randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions: (1) standard clinical care, (2) an immediate intervention at the time of the Emergency Room visit; (3) immediate intervention followed by a comprehensive intervention session subsequent to the Emergency Room. Patients will be interviewed at three and 18 months to assess the effectiveness of the interventions, as reflected in reported changes in hazardous drinking, alcohol-related and negative consequences, injury reoccurrence. Analysis will test for a main effect of intervention type (Primary Question 1) and an interaction between intervention type and prognostic factors (Primary Question 2). Additionally, analyses of intervention, injury event and prognostic effects are to be conducted in order to identify relationships of potential significance which have not yet emerged from theory.
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