Is a patient's type of substance dependence (alcohol, drug or both) associated with the quality of primary care they receive?

Background: Primary care clinicians' attitudes may differ based on patients' substance dependence type (alcohol, other drugs or both).

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether substance dependence type is associated with primary care quality (PCQ).

Methods: We tested the association between substance dependence type and six PCQ scales of the Primary Care Assessment Survey (PCAS) in multivariable linear regression models.

Implementing alcohol disorders treatment throughout the community.

Purpose Of Review: Alcohol is the world's third leading cause of ill-health and premature death. Alcohol has been found to be the most harmful drug, when considering harm to the individual and to others. With a prespecified search strategy we looked for relevant articles concerning screening, brief interventions and referral to treatment of patients with hazardous or harmful alcohol use, with a special focus on the primary healthcare implementation of these effective interventions.