Brief e-Health Interventions for Alcohol Use and Related-Problems

As reviewed in Chapter 6, brief in-person interventions are an effective and cost-effective way to reduce alcohol use problems. Despite this, most Australians who experience an alcohol use disorder (AUD) will never receive treatment, and for those who do, the average delay from emergence of AUD to first treatment contact is 18 years. Several barriers may prevent the implementation of Brief Interventions for alcohol use problems, such as: time, access to health professionals trained in brief intervention, lack of resources, cost, and the stigma associated with seeking treatment for problematic alcohol use. But brief e-health interventions (interventions delivered via internet, mobile phone, or computer) reduce several barriers to treatment.

Specifically, brief e-health interventions for alcohol use problems are typically one session, can be accessed at the user’s discretion, are easy to implement without special training, are cheaper than in-person interventions, have demonstrated good acceptability among people with alcohol use problems, and may reduce some of the stigma associated with seeking treatment. Indeed, among Australians who consumed alcohol in the past year, free online interventions are the preferred form of treatment for alcohol use. In Australia, brief e-health interventions for alcohol use are a particularly promising treatment option given that internet access (89%) and smartphone ownership (83%) is near ubiquitous. Thus, e-health interventions could be scaled up and become a critical tool to reach non-treatment-seekers, hard to reach communities, and younger people who drink (who are the most likely to have access to mobile phones and the internet).