by Llaen Coston-Clark

I recently stumbled upon NIAAA’s practitioner’s guide on Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth. There are two forms:

1) an easy to use, pocket-sized guide that breaks down the steps of screening and brief intervention (SBI), and offers information on standard drinks, resources, and when to screen patients, and

2) a 40 page guide that explains SBI in more detail, provides tips for following up with patients, addresses confidentiality issues (with parents, with patients), answers FAQs, and highlights important reasons for asking youth about drinking.

I like NIAAA’s emphasis on prevention and their use of brief motivational interviewing. The language of the guide is less authoritative and, instead, follows some best practices of motivational interviewing, including:

• asking permission to provide factual information or feedback
• affirming any healthy choices/behaviors
• exploring with the patient what steps he or she would like to take to cut back or abstain from drinking.

This is a great strategy for discussing alcohol use with adolescents who are becoming more independent and who might otherwise “shut down” with an adult lecturing at them.

What makes NIAAA’s pocket guide different from other SBI tools, including our own BNI (Brief Negotiated Interview)?

• There are just 2 screening questions to get the conversation started.
• NIAAA touts it as the first tool to ask about the patient’s friends’ drinking habits.
• It offers a risk scale to determine how risky the patient’s drinking is (considering patient age and frequency of drinking).
• It advises practitioners to screen youth as young as 9 years old.

What do you think of NIAAA’s new guide? Helpful, bite-sized guidance, or too much information crammed into a pocket-sized pamphlet? Could you imagine using this with 9-18 year-olds?