Updating alcohol Cochrane literature review
Updating Cochrane systematic reviews makes them most useful and fresh for readers. We updated our review on concurrent alcohol and drug problems again.
Which new studies we found?
We found seven studies that examined 825 people with drug problems. Six of the studies were funded by the National Institutes for Health or by the Health Research Board; one study did not report its funding source.
One study focused on the way people think and act versus an approach based on Alcoholics Anonymous. It aimed to motivate the person to develop a desire to stop using drugs or alcohol.
Three studies looked at a counselling style for helping people to explore and resolve doubts about changing their behaviour (group, individual and intensive formats). Their controls were education, or less intensive counselling, or assessment-only.
Two Irish studies and one Swiss study looked at practices that aimed to identify an alcohol problem and motivate the person to do something about it versus usual treatment.
This study has been made into a podcast available at Cochrane.org news item at https://www.cochrane.org/news/podcast-which-talking-therapies-work-people-who-use-drugs-and-also-have-alcohol-problems
and a Network news item https://mhn.cochrane.org/news/podcast-which-talking-therapies-work-people-who-use-drugs-and-also-have-alcohol-problems Listen to the podcast below:
Updating Cochrane Review – Key results
The Swiss and Irish studies were directly compared. They took place in general practices (one trial) or methadone clinics (two trials). They included 170 participants with a mean age of 37 years. All participants had positive alcohol screening test upon entry to the trial. At the end, the scores between groups were similar (average difference in scores: -0.6, 1.7 and -2, respectively).
One study found that a brief motivational intervention led to a reduction of alcohol use (by seven or more days in the past month at 6 months).
It remains uncertain whether talking therapies affect drinking and drug-using in people who have problems with both alcohol and other drugs. We lack high quality studies.
Cited cochrane review: Klimas J, Fairgrieve C, Tobin H, Field C-A, O’Gorman CSM, Glynn LG, Keenan E, Saunders J, Bury G, Dunne C, Cullen W. Psychosocial interventions to reduce alcohol consumption in concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug users. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2018, Issue 11
Read a summary of the previous version of this review here
Which talking therapies work for drug users with alcohol problems? A Cochrane update
Systematic reviews enhance drugs conference
Systematic reviews are the cream of the research crop. Those who understand their value thrive at an opportunity to meet the review authors at scientific conferences. This year, the annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) in San Diego featured several important reviews. Here’s a listing of all the posters presenting reviews from the session on Wednesday, June 13th, 2018.
Overdose
Non-fatal overdose prevalence among people who inject drugs Samantha Colledge (June 11, 2018);
Prescription drug monitoring programs on nonfatal and fatal drug overdoses David Fink;
Gender
Limited inclusion of women in functional neuroimaging studies of opioid-use disorder Hestia Moningka;
Women’s prescription drug misuse Bridgette Peteet;
Gender differences in HIV, anti-HCV and HBsAg prevalence among people who inject Janni Leung;
Services
Case for hospital teams in treatment of opioid use disorders Kelsey Priest;
Addiction-related characteristics of substances users in harm reduction settings Charlotte Kervran;
STDs and injecting
Extremely low HIV incidence among PWID: Terminology, high/middle income settings, methodology, and addressing new outbreaks Don Des Jarlais;
Use of opioids and stimulants by people who inject drugs Amy Peacock;
Factors associated with uptake or willingness to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among people who inject drugs Yohansa Fernández;
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for people who inject drugs? Angela Bazzi;
Cannabis
Cannabis and cannabinoids for the treatment of people with chronic non-cancer pain conditions Emily Stockings;
Medical marijuana laws and adolescent marijuana use in the US Aaron Sarvet;
Does liberalization of cannabis policy influence adolescents’ levels of use? Maria Melchior;
Other topics
Clinical and toxicological profile of NBOMESs Nino Marchi;
Sensation-seeking personality trait and its association to drug seeking behavior in adolescents Thiago Fidalgo.
Systematic reviews cream of the crop from Brazil through Egypt
NIDA International poster session on Monday, June 11, 2018
Three Australians, two North Americans; an Egyptian, African and Brazilian had one poster on systematic review each. Five were meta-analyses.
The Australian reviews dealt with overdose, STDs and injecting:
Nonfatal overdose prevalence among people who inject drugs S. Colledge, (UK, Australia);
Gender differences in HIV, anti-hepatitis C virus, and hepatitis B virus surface antigen prevalence among people who inject drugs J. Leung, (Australia, UK, Portugal);
Use of opioids and stimulants by people who inject drugs: A. Peacock, (Australia);
The North-Americans reviewed drug monitoring programmes:
Global review of drug-checking services 2017 L.J. Maier, (California);
Urinalysis frequency and health outcomes for persons on opioid agonist therapy: J. McEachern, (Canada);
Anger, brain stimulation and antipsychotics were reviewed too:
Anger in users of psychoactive substances H.V. Laitano, (Brazil);
Noninvasive brain stimulation in addiction medicine A. Elaghoury.(Egypt);
Atypical versus typical antipsychotics for the treatment of addiction: S. Hanu. (Ghana).
With the increasing demands on scientists’ workloads, systematic reviews are an effective way of staying up to date with the most recent developments in the field. See also my previous blog posts about CPDD from the previous years:
2017: Dr Wood tells the forum recipe for research-centre success
2016: Changing the ways of CPDD – College on Problems of Drug Dependence – June 12-16, #CPDD2016
2015: Getting the most out of the Conference of the College on Problems of Drugs Dependence #CPDD2015
2014: 76th Annual Conference of College on Problems of Drug Dependence: Decide to be fearless& fabulous
2013: My itinerary for the Conference – College on Problems of Drug Dependence, San Diego, June 15-20
Community first responders for out of hospital cardiac arrest
When a heart stops beating, first responders can revert the cardiac arrest. But how efficient are they? Can they help save the person before the ambulance arrives? A new project by the Centre for Emergency Medical Science at University College Dublin seeks to find answers to these questions.
This project will be a systematic review of scientific literature on the topic.
We will follow a strict guide for doing systematic reviews by the Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane reviews are used to inform decisions in health care. First, we will search for every published study about the topic. We will include only the best studies. Then, we will use their findings to calculate the impact of mobilizing community first responders.
“For the purpose of this study, Community first responders (CFRs) are defined as individuals who live or work within a community and are organized in a framework which offers OHCA care in that community, to support the standard ambulance service response.”
The ambulance service dispatch centre, or another service, activates CFRs in real time to attend OHCA in that community.
They can be anyone, including professionals like nurses, police, or fire fighters. But also lay people who volunteer for local community groups. Sometimes, fire fighters act as the designated first responders.
Cardiac arrest in the community
If we do nothing people who have a cardiac arrest die. Community members can save lives by being the first responders on the scene before the ambulance arrives. Especially in remote places without access to medical professionals. However, their training and activation take time and resources. We need to know whether it’s worth it.
Citation example: Barry T, Masterson S, Conroy N, Klimas J, Segurado R., Codd M, Bury G. (2017) Community first responders for out of hospital cardiac arrest [Protocol]. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 8.
Reducing drinking in illicit drug users: an impact story @COMETinitiative
Research impact is often hard to prove. It takes years before our findings change the world and the change is often small. This new abstract published in the Trials journal summarizes a poster presentation from the conference of the Core Outcome Measures in Trials (COMET) Initiative. This year the conference was in Calgary, Canada, on May 20-21.
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| credit: trialsjournal.org |
One out of three people who receive methadone in primary care drink in excess of the recommended limits. This poses significant risk to their health, especially to their liver; it complicates their care and increases risk of relapse.
We wanted to inform addiction treatment in primary care with respect to psychosocial interventions to reduce drinking in concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug users, by: exploring the experience of (and evidence for) psychosocial interventions, developing and evaluating a complex intervention to improve implementation. Evaluation of the intervention tested core feasibility and acceptability outcomes for patients and providers.
Our Cochrane review found only four studies. Having inconclusive evidence, we interviewed 28 patients, 38 physicians and nurses. Patient interviews informed development of a national clinical practice guideline, as well as design and outcomes of the evaluation project. Feasibility outcome measures included recruitment, retention, completion and follow-up rates, as well as satisfaction with the intervention. Secondary outcome was proportion of patients with problem alcohol use at the follow up, as measured by Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Information from the Cochrane review and the qualitative interviews informed an expert panel consultation which developed clinical guidelines for primary care. The guideline became part of a complex intervention to support the uptake of psychosocial interventions by family physicians; the intervention is currently evaluated in a pilot controlled trial. Two new alcohol education programmes were created as a response of the community to the problem and a lack of specialist support services for patients with dual dependencies. Both Coolmine Therapeutic Community and the Community Response Agency run a 10-week group that specifically seeks to include people with dual dependencies, from methadone programmes.
Cite this article as: Klimas et al.: Reducing drinking in concurrent
problem alcohol and illicit drug users: an impact story. Trials 2015
16(Suppl 3):P11. doi:10.1186/1745-6215-16-S3-P11
Reduce alcohol consumption in illicit drug users: In the news
In 2012, we reviewed the evidence for talking therapies to reduce drinking among people who also use other drugs. This review was published by the Cochrane collaboration and updated in November 2014. Seven months ago, Olivia Maynard, a research associate from the University of Bristol, gives a wonderful summary of the updated review.
Whilst we all know that excessive alcohol consumption is bad for our health, illicit drug users are one group for whom problem alcohol use can be especially harmful, causing serious health consequences.
The prevalence of the hepatitis C virus is high among illicit drug users and problem alcohol use contributes to a poorer prognosis of this disease by increasing its progression to other diseases. In addition, rates of anxiety, mood and personality disorders are higher among illicit drug users, each of which is exacerbated by problem alcohol use.
Despite these health consequences, the prevalence of problem alcohol use is high among illicit drug users, with around 38% of opiate- and 45% of stimulant-using treatment-seeking individuals having co-occurring alcohol use disorders (Hartzler 2010; Hartzler 2011).
Previous Cochrane reviews have investigated the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions (or ‘talking therapies’) for either problem alcohol use, or illicit drug use alone. However, none have investigated the effectiveness of these therapies for individuals with concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug use. Given the significant health risk and the high prevalence of concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug use, a Cochrane review of this kind is long over-due.
Luckily, Kilmas and colleagues have done the hard work for us and their comprehensive Cochrane review of the literature evaluates the evidence for talking therapies for alcohol reduction among illicit drug users (Klimas et al, 2014).
This updated Cochrane review looks at psychotherapy for concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug use.
The talking therapies we’re concerned with here are psychologically based interventions, which aim to reduce alcohol consumption without using any pharmacological (i.e. drug-based) treatments. Although there’s a wide range of different talking therapies currently used in practice, the ones which are discussed in this Cochrane review are:
- Motivational interviewing (MI): this uses a client-centered approach, where the client’s readiness to change and their motivation, is a key component of the therapy.
- Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT): this focuses on changing the way a client thinks and behaves. To address problem alcohol use, CBT approaches identify the triggers associated with drug use and use behavioural techniques to prevent relapse.
- Brief interventions (BI): often BIs are based on the principles of MI and include giving advice and information. However, as implied by the name, BIs tend to be shorter and so are more suitable for non-specialist facilities.
- The 12-step model: this is the approach used by Alcoholics Anonymous and operates by emphasising the powerlessness of the individual over their addiction. It then uses well-established therapeutic approaches, such as group cohesiveness and peer pressure to overcome this addiction.
Methods
- The Cochrane review included all randomised controlled trials which compared psychosocial interventions with another therapy (whether that be other psychosocial therapies (to allow for comparison between therapies), pharmacological therapies, or placebo). Participants were adult illicit drug users with concurrent problem alcohol use
- Four studies were included, involving 594 participants in total
- The effectiveness of these interventions were assessed and the authors were most interested in the impact of these therapies on alcohol use, but were also interested in their impact on illicit drug use, participants’ engagement in further treatment and differences in alcohol related harms
- The quality of the studies was also assessed
The quality of trials included in this review could certainly have been a lot better.
Results
The four studies were very different, each comparing different therapies:
- Study 1: cognitive-behavioural therapy versus the 12-step model (Carroll et al, 1998)
- Study 2: brief intervention versus treatment as usual (Feldman et al 2013)
- Study 3: group or individual motivational interviewing versus hepatitis health promotion (Nyamathi et al, 2010)
- Study 4: brief motivational intervention versus assessment only (Stein et al, 2002)
Due to this heterogeneity, the results could not be combined and so each study was considered separately. Of the four studies, only Study 4 found any meaningful differences between the therapies compared. Here, participants in the brief motivational intervention condition had reduced alcohol use (by seven or more days in the past month at 6-month follow up) as compared with the control group (Risk Ratio 1.67; 95% Confidence Interval 1.08 to 2.60; P value = 0.02). However, no other differences were observed for other outcome measures.
Overall, the review found little evidence that there are differences in the effectiveness of talking therapies in reducing alcohol consumption among concurrent alcohol and illicit drug users.
The authors of this review also bemoan the quality of the evidence provided by the four studies and judged them to be of either low or moderate quality, failing to account for all potential sources of bias.
The review found no evidence that any of the four therapies was a winner when it came to reducing alcohol consumption in illicit drug users.
Conclusions
So, what does this all mean for practice?
In a rather non-committal statement, which reflects the paucity of evidence available, the authors report that:
based on the low-quality evidence identified in this review, we cannot recommend using or ceasing psychosocial interventions for problem alcohol use in illicit drug users.
However, the authors suggest that similar to other conditions, early intervention for alcohol problems in primary care should be a priority. They also argue that given the high rates of co-occurrence of alcohol and drug problems, the integration of therapy for these two should be common practice, although as shown here, the evidence base to support this is currently lacking.
And what about the comparison between the different talking therapies?
Again, rather disappointingly, the authors report that:
no reliable conclusions can be drawn from these data regarding the effectiveness of different types of psychosocial interventions for the target condition.
How about the implications for research? What do we still need to find out?
This review really highlights the scarcity of well-reported, methodologically sound research investigating the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for alcohol and illicit drug use and the authors call for trials using robust methodologies to further investigate this.
Choosing a therapy for this group of patients is difficult with insufficient evidence to support our decision.
Links
Klimas J, Tobin H, Field CA, O’Gorman CSM, Glynn LG, Keenan E, Saunders J, Bury G, Dunne C, Cullen W. Psychosocial interventions to reduce alcohol consumption in concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug users. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014, Issue 12. Art. No.: CD009269. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD009269.pub3.
Hartzler B, Donovan DM, Huang Z. Comparison of opiate-primary treatment seekers with and without alcohol use disorder. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 2010;39 (2):114–23.
Hartzler B, DonovanDM,Huang Z. Rates and influences of alcohol use disorder comorbidity among primary stimulant misusing treatment-seekers: meta-analytic findings across eight NIDA CTN trials. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 2011;37(5):460–71.
Carroll, K.M., Nich, C. Ball, S.A, McCance, E., Rounsavile, B.J. Treatment of cocaine and alcohol dependence with psychotherapy and dislfram. Addiction 1998; 93(5):713-27. [PubMed abstract]
Feldman N, Chatton A, Khan R, Khazaal Y, Zullino D. Alcohol-related brief intervention in patients treated for opiate or cocaine dependence: a randomized controlled study. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy 2011;6(22):1–8.
Nyamathi A, Shoptaw S,Cohen A,Greengold B,Nyamathi K, Marfisee M, et al. Effect of motivational interviewing on reduction of alcohol use. Drug Alcohol Dependence 2010;107(1):23–30. [1879–0046: (Electronic)]
Stein MD, Charuvastra A, Makstad J, Anderson BJ. A randomized trial of a brief alcohol intervention for needle exchanges (BRAINE). Addiction 2002;97(6):691. [:09652140] [PubMed abstract]
– See more at: http://www.thementalelf.net/mental-health-conditions/substance-misuse/reducing-alcohol-consumption-in-illicit-drug-users-new-cochrane-review-on-psychotherapies/#sthash.nhqsnqPW.dpuf