Problematic alcohol use is common, causes significant harm and can be challenging to discuss with patients. One in five NZ adults drink in a way that could harm themselves or others.
Discussions around alcohol use are commonly steeped in discomfort for both the doctor and patient. Closed statements, understatements, humour and sudden topic changes are often used.
Dr John McMenamin will cover why it is so important to overcome the barriers to talking about this important issue, and offer practical skills for alcohol screening and brief interventions. These include single, two or three question screening, use of the ABC tool, and having a risk assessment tool.
John will give practical tips on how to approach the topic with your patient, and complete an intervention in a 15-minute consult.
He suggests you might like to watch with some post-it notes handy - he will explain!
Resources
Presenter
Dr john McMenamin
John is a Whanganui GP and primary care advisor on alcohol to the Health Promotion Agency. He has contributed to the development of alcohol screening and brief advice including supporting the introduction of the Alcohol ABC programme in NZ general practice.
John’s doctoral thesis was on Screening for Alcohol in General Practice and included following patients over 10 years.
He is interested in and presenting on how we can understand alcohol issues as GPs and the conversations we can initiate.
