Management of drinking problems

Management of drinking problems - Praca Zbiorowa

This publication provides a practical guide to the identification and management of drinking problems. It calls for a response to drinking problems that goes beyond the provision of sophisticated specialist treatment for persons labelled alcoholics and gives special importance to the detection of incipient problems and their early management. It sets out a number of model questionnaires, checklists and instruments that can be used as everyday tools for early detection and intervention in primary care. It follows the logical sequence of a strategy for the prevention and management of alcohol problems in primary care. Chapter 1 examines the part played by alcohol and drinking in communities and in individual lives. Each individual consumption is determined to be a balance between factors that encourage and discourage drinking. Chapter 2 discusses this balance and how it varies over a lifetime. Other chapters catalogue the social, psychological and physical harm that can result from the use of alcohol, discuss the resources available for preventing and managing problems, and list measures for prevention. The remaining chapters provide detailed practical advice on screening and management. Readers are given a structure for ascertaining and categorizing alcohol-related risks that can be used in the day-to-day screening of patients and in decisions on what type of action is required. A chapter on management offers advice on ways of informing and helping patients who make minimal demands on staff time and those who require combined efforts of staff, family and outside groups.