Alcohol Consumption
Conditions
Keywords
At-risk drinking, Alcohol education, Effectiveness, Cost-effectiveness
Brief summary
Older adults become more sensitive to alcohol, and alcohol also interacts adversely with their common medical conditions and medications. The aim of Project SHARE (Senior Health and Alcohol Risk Education) is to see whether patient and provider education can decrease risky alcohol use and reduce health care costs in persons 60 years of age and older.
Detailed description
Alcohol use in the elderly is an increasingly important public health problem. Alcohol-related risks and problems in older persons may come from the interaction between alcohol and diminished health or medication use. The proposed study is a randomized trial of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an integrated patient-provider intervention to prevent risky alcohol use among older adults. The intervention will include a tested screening and education system that was developed especially for older adults and their providers, supplemented by a well-established intervention for physicians. The proposed research design involves randomization of 31 primary care physicians in seven clinics and their eligible patients aged 60+ to the intervention versus usual care.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALPatient-provider education
Experimental patients received an intervention consisting of the following components: written reports and educational materials, a telephone health educator intervention (at baseline, 3 and 6 months), and a brief provider intervention.
Sponsors
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
University of California, Los Angeles
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
SINGLE (Investigator)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
60 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* 60 and over * At-risk drinkers * Patient of participating physician
Exclusion criteria
* Severe cognitive impairment * Terminally ill or deceased * Expected to move out of area or into nursing home within following year * Could not fill out written surveys in English * Likely dependent drinker
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| At-risk drinking at 6 month followup | 6 months | At-risk drinking is alcohol use that (either alone or in conjunction with selected comorbidities, symptoms and/or medications) poses health risks. It is measured using the CARET instrument developed by Moore and colleagues. |
| At-risk drinking at 12 month followup | 12 months | At-risk drinking is alcohol use that (either alone or in conjunction with selected comorbidities, symptoms and/or medications) poses health risks. It is measured using the CARET instrument developed by Moore and colleagues. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Mental Composite Score at 6 months | 6 months | We used self-reported SF12 data from baseline, 6- and 12-month written surveys to construct Mental Composite Score (MCS) and Physical Composite Score (PCS). |
| Healthcare utilization | 12 months (cumulative) | We used self-reported data from 3-month, 6-month and 12-month written patient surveys to measure cumulative healthcare utilization by type (e.g., hospitalizations, emergency department visits, physician visits, etc.) over the twelve months following baseline. |
| Outpatient service costs | 12 months (cumulative) | We used administrative data on clinic-based services linked to Medicare fee schedules to construct cumulative measures of outpatient service costs (from the Medicare perspective) for the twelve months following baseline. |
| Direct recruitment and intervention costs | 12 months (cumulative) | We collected data on the resources used directly for recruitment (e.g., clinic-based staff time, phones, postage, etc.) and the intervention (e.g., cost of health educator time, supplies, opportunity costs of the physician's time, etc.) spent on the intervention, to construct overall measures of the per-patient cost of recruitment and intervention. |
| Health-related quality of life at 6 months | 6 months | Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is measured using the SF-6D. |
| Mental Composite Score at 12 month followup | 12 months | We used self-reported SF12 data from baseline, 6- and 12-month written surveys to construct Mental Composite Score (MCS) and Physical Composite Score (PCS). |
| Physical Composite Score at 6 month followup | 6 months | We used self-reported SF12 data from baseline, 6- and 12-month written surveys to construct Mental Composite Score (MCS) and Physical Composite Score (PCS). |
| Physical Composite Score at 12 month followup | 12 months | We used self-reported SF12 data from baseline, 6- and 12-month written surveys to construct Mental Composite Score (MCS) and Physical Composite Score (PCS). |
| Health-related quality of life at 12 month followup | 12 months | Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is measured using the SF-6D. |
| Depressive symptoms | 12 months | Depressive symptoms are measured using the Geriatric Depression Scale. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed