COUNSELING

Laura Veach
Policy Implementation Regarding Brief Interventions in the Trauma Center
Awarded $14,031 for the period 10/1/08 to 9/30/09
Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that one person is injured every 2 minutes in an alcohol-related crash in the United States (2007). Up to half of trauma patients test positive for alcohol problems (Saitz 2005). Alcohol impairs wound healing (Fitzgerald 2007), enhances susceptibility to infection (Zambell 2004), and potentiates the severity of traumatic brain injury in motor vehicle crash victims (Cunningham 2002). New research indicates that talking with trauma survivors about their drinking facilitates changes in future behavior (Schermer 2006) and reduces trauma recidivism by 50 percent (Crawford 2004, Gentilello 1999). In 2006, the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma required protocols for alcohol screening and brief counseling interventions in all Level-I Trauma Centers.

A collaboration between faculty in the Level-I Trauma Center at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and the Department of Counseling will design and conduct an innovative 3-year study involving alcohol screening and brief intervention for patients hospitalized with alcohol-related trauma. The goals are (1) to guide policy development on effective alcohol screening; (2) to compare the effectiveness of two new, shorter screening tools for risky drinking with the longer tool in current use; (3) to assess the outcomes of two different brief counseling interventions with trauma patients screened to have risky drinking behaviors; and (d) to examine the impact of the implementation of this new policy in a Level-I Trauma Center.