RCT of effectiveness of motivational enhancement therapy delivered by nurses for hazardous drinkers in primary care units in Thailand.

Aims: To determine the effectiveness of Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) for hazardous drinkers in Primary Care Unit (PCU) settings in rural Thailand.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in eight PCUs in Ubonratchatanee and Chachoengsao provinces in Thailand. Hazardous drinkers were identified using the World Health Organization-recommended Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test.

Methodological challenges in online trials.

Health care and health care services are increasingly being delivered over the Internet. There is a strong argument that interventions delivered online should also be evaluated online to maximize the trial's external validity. Conducting a trial online can help reduce research costs and improve some aspects of internal validity.

It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it: a qualitative study of advice for young cannabis users.

Introduction: Advice is a widely recommended and practised intervention with young drug users. Study of precisely how advice is given and received in any setting has, however, been limited.

Design And Methods: We qualitatively analysed 106 audio-recordings of advice sessions on cannabis use for young people within a randomised trial.

Short forms of the AUDIT in a Web-based study of young drinkers.

Introduction: The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) is under-studied among young drinkers, as are the contributions of individual items to total AUDIT scores, and online performance of the existing briefer versions of this instrument.

Design And Methods: This study examined individual items of the AUDIT, and various combinations, including the existing briefer versions, in relation to total AUDIT scores in a Web-based study of young drinkers. A total of 167 young people aged 16-24 years old who had consumed any alcohol within the previous 7 days were recruited by both offline and online methods.

Randomized trial of training and supervision in motivational interviewing with adolescent drug treatment practitioners.

Motivational interviewing is an empirically supported treatment for drug and alcohol problems. Training in this approach is very popular, although previous studies have identified that the acquisition of key skills is challenging and that postworkshop supervision inputs are helpful. This pilot trial investigated the training of adolescent drug treatment practitioners, comparing a group who received immediate training against a delayed training study condition.

Test-retest reliability of an online measure of past week alcohol consumption (the TOT-AL), and comparison with face-to-face interview.

Objective: This paper reports on the development of a new online measure of beverage-specific past week alcohol consumption (the TOT-AL), its test-retest reliability, and comparability with the face-to-face approach of ascertaining alcohol intake.

Methods: University students participating in the reliability study completed the TOT-AL twice on the same day with at least 3 h apart. Students in the comparability study attended a face-to-face interview and completed the TOT-AL on the same day, in a randomised order, at least 3 h apart.

Change over time in alcohol consumption in control groups in brief intervention studies: systematic review and meta-regression study.

Reactivity to assessment has attracted recent attention in the brief alcohol intervention literature. This systematic review sought to examine the nature of change in alcohol consumption over time in control groups in brief intervention studies. Primary studies were identified from existing reviews published in English language, peer-reviewed journals between 1995 and 2005.

Randomized controlled trial of motivational interviewing compared with drug information and advice for early intervention among young cannabis users.

Aim: To test the effectiveness of motivational interviewing (MI) in comparison with drug information and advice in opportunistically securing reductions in drug-related risk among young cannabis users not seeking help.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Eleven London Further Education colleges.

Development of a psychologically enhanced interactive online intervention for hazardous drinking.

Aims: The content of novel interventions is often not well specified. We provide a detailed account of the rationale for and redevelopment of an Internet resource for hazardous drinkers-Down Your Drink (DYD) (www.downyourdrink.

Sexual health risk among dance drug users: cross-sectional comparisons with nationally representative data.

Aims: To describe the sexual behaviour and related risk of a sample of dance drug users and compare this with data from the UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles 2000 survey.

Methods: Cross-sectional purposive sampling using both self-completion postal and web-based questionnaires.

Findings: This sample of dance drug users are more sexually active and have more concurrent partners than the general population.

Do brief interventions which target alcohol consumption also reduce cigarette smoking? Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Brief interventions are known to be effective in changing both substance use and other health-compromising behaviors. It is unknown whether they may have secondary effects on behaviors which are not specifically targeted. The literature on brief alcohol interventions was selected to explore this possibility, with a study focus on secondary impact on cigarette smoking.

Comparative psychometric study of a range of hazardous drinking measures administered online in a youth population.

Aims: To compare the psychometric performance of a range of existing alcohol measures when data are collected online with young people, and thereby to gain insights into the reliability and validity of this mode of data collection.

Method: One hundred and sixty-seven U.K.

The HIM (Health for Izhevsk Men) trial protocol.

Background: Russia is one of the very few industrialised countries in the world where life expectancy has been declining. Alcohol has been implicated as a major contributor to the rapid fluctuations observed in male life expectancy since 1985 that have been particularly marked among working-age men. One approach to reducing the alcohol problem in Russia is 'brief interventions' which seek to change views of the personal acceptability of excessive drinking and to encourage self-directed behaviour change.

Randomized controlled trial of the effects of completing the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test questionnaire on self-reported hazardous drinking.

Aims: The direct effects of screening on drinking behaviour have not previously been evaluated experimentally. We tested whether screening reduces self-reported hazardous drinking in comparison with a non-screened control group.

Design: Two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT), with both groups blinded to the true nature of the study.

The DYD-RCT protocol: an on-line randomised controlled trial of an interactive computer-based intervention compared with a standard information website to reduce alcohol consumption among hazardous drinkers.

Background: Excessive alcohol consumption is a significant public health problem throughout the world. Although there are a range of effective interventions to help heavy drinkers reduce their alcohol consumption, these have little proven population-level impact. Researchers internationally are looking at the potential of Internet interventions in this area.

A case study of publication bias in an influential series of reviews of drug education.

There has been remarkably little demonstration of the deleterious impact of publication bias within addiction science or indeed in wider healthcare policy and practice. An account is provided here of how publication bias was identified in relation to a series of drug education reviews which have been very influential on subsequent research, policy and practice. Later data analyses unpublished by the same review team demonstrated earlier findings to be unreliable.

5-Year trends in use of hallucinogens and other adjunct drugs among UK dance drug users.

Aims: To describe and assess trends in the use of hallucinogens and other adjunct drugs over a 5-year period.

Design: Repeated-measures cross-sectional survey.

Setting And Participants: Annual magazine-based survey targeting people who use drugs in dance contexts.

Pilot cluster-randomised trial of adjunctive motivational interviewing to reduce crack cocaine use in clients on methadone maintenance.

This pilot trial explored the effectiveness of an adjunctive single session of motivational interviewing (MI) to reduce crack cocaine use in a methadone maintenance treatment population. Twenty-nine participants were cluster randomised by clinician to MI or a crack information control condition as part of treatment as usual. The intervention had a modest impact on one crack cocaine measure but was not statistically significant in this small sample.

The reliability of drug use data collected in the classroom: what is the problem, why does it matter and how should it be approached?

Difficulties in collecting reliable data on drug use in the context of an exploratory trial of a drug prevention intervention have led to a consideration of the wider issues of the reliability of routinely collected data. A problem is identified, and although its magnitude cannot currently be described, its nature and possible significance are considered. In this methodological discussion, significant practical and ethical issues are explored, including some of the complexities inherent in conducting research on drug use in schools, along with the need to develop improved methods of study which address the specific challenges posed by the school environment.

The rise of Viagra among British illicit drug users: 5-year survey data.

Viagra use among British nightclubbers, a sentinel population of illicit drug users, was first reported in 1999. There has since been little attention paid to the evolution of patterns of non-prescribed use, apart from among men who have sex with men. Beginning in 1999 an annual survey has been conducted with a specialist dance music magazine, permitting cross-sectional comparisons over time.