Texts from ER can curb binge drinking

Young American adults reduced their binge drinking habits by more than 50% after receiving text messages following a visit to the emergency department, a new study has shown.

A total of 765 young adult emergency room patients with a history of “hazardous” drinking took part in the study, ‘A Text Message Alcohol Intervention for Young Adult Emergency Department Patients: A Randomised Clinical Trial’, which was published online in Annals of Emergency Medicine.

“Each day in the US more than 50,000 adults aged 18 to 24 visit ERs and up to half have hazardous alcohol use patterns,” said Brian Suffoletto, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pittsburgh, Pa. “The emergency department provides a unique settling to screen young adults for dinking problems and to engage with them via their preferred mode of communication to reduce future use.”

For a period spanning 12 weeks, one-third received text messages prompting a response to drinking-related queries and received text messages in return giving feedback on their answers.

Participants received feedback designed to support their low-risk drinking plan or goals, or to promote reflection on either their drinking plan or their decision not to set a low-risk goal.

One-third received only text message queries with no feedback and the remaining one-third received no text messages at all.

The group that received text messages queries and feedback reduced their binge drinking days by 51%, and the number of drinks per day by 31%. In comparison, the other two groups reported an increase in the number of binge drinking days.

“Illicit drugs and opiates grab all the headlines, but alcohol remains the fourth leading cause of preventable death in the US,” added Dr. Suffoletto. “If we can intervene in a meaningful way in the health and habits of people when they are young, we could make a real dent in that statistic.

“Alcohol may bring them to the ER, but we can do out part to keep them from becoming repeat visitors.”