ArticleAddiction (Abingdon, England)2016
Reviewing and interpreting the effects of brief alcohol interventions: comment on a Cochrane review about motivational interviewing for young adults.
Article in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of interventions for reducing heavy episodic drinking in sub-Saharan African settings.PloS one · 2020Pooled it
- Alcohol screening and brief interventions for adults and young people in health and community-based settings: a qualitative systematic literature review.BMC public health · 2017Pooled it
- Motivational interviewing for the prevention of alcohol misuse in young adults.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2016Pooled it
- Characteristics of women with alcohol use disorders who benefit from intensive motivational interviewing.Substance abuse · 2022Trial
- Main outcomes of M-bridge: A sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) for developing an adaptive preventive intervention for college drinking.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2021Trial
- Efficacy and Outcomes of a Music-Based Emotion Regulation Mobile App in Distressed Young People: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2019Trial
- Article
- How effective are health messages/warnings in improving knowledge and awareness of alcohol-related harm? The Slovenian case on using a mobile app.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Observational
- A mobile-based pregaming drinking prevention intervention for college students: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.Addiction science & clinical practice · 2022Article
- Alcohol brief intervention, specialty treatment and drinking outcomes at 12 months: Results from a systematic alcohol screening and brief intervention initiative in adult primary care.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2022Article
- Ecological Momentary Assessment of Alcohol Consumption and Its Concordance with Transdermal Alcohol Detection and Timeline Follow-Back Self-report Among Adults Experiencing Homelessness.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Best Practices in the Management of Nonmedical Opioid Use in Patients with Cancer-Related Pain.The oncologist · 2020Review
- Comparative Effectiveness of Brief Alcohol Interventions for College Students: Results from a Network Meta-Analysis.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2019Review
- Considerations of complexity in rating certainty of evidence in systematic reviews: a primer on using the GRADE approach in global health.BMJ global health · 2019Article
- A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of a Technology-Based Substance Use Intervention for Youth Exiting Foster Care.Children and youth services review · 2018Article
- 'DrinkThink' alcohol screening and brief intervention for young people: a qualitative evaluation of training and implementation.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2018Article
- Development of Intensive Motivational Interviewing (IMI) and Modifications for Treating Women with Alcohol Use Disorders.Journal of contemporary psychotherapy · 2018Article
- Reviewing and interpreting the effects of brief alcohol interventions: comment on a Cochrane review about motivational interviewing for young adults.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCochrane recently published a systematic review on motivational interviewing (MI) for alcohol misuse in young adults. The review authors concluded that 'there are no substantive, meaningful benefits of MI interventions for the prevention of alcohol misuse' (p. 2), as effect sizes were 'small and unlikely to be of any meaningful benefit in practice' (p. 27). As most of these interventions were quite brief, we wish to open a dialogue about interpreting effect sizes in this review and of (brief) alcohol interventions more generally. ANALYSIS: We analyze four methodological aspects of the review that likely influenced the author's conclusions about intervention effects: (1) risk of bias assessments, (2) search strategies, (3) assessing the quality of the body of evidence and (4) definitions of sustainability and clinical significance.
conclusionsWe interpret the effect sizes found in this review to indicate modest yet beneficial and potentially meaningful effects of these interventions, given their brevity and low cost. This interpretation is consistent with other reviews on brief, MI-based interventions and brief interventions more generally. We therefore encourage the field to re-open dialogue about the clinical importance of the effects of MI on alcohol misuse by young adults. Rather than dismissing interventions with small effects, we believe a more fruitful way forward for the field would be to catalogue effect sizes for various alcohol interventions. Such a catalogue would help stakeholders themselves to choose which interventions meet their minimum desired impact, and thus may be suitable given their targeted populations, setting and resources.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.