Children Who Are Taught Moderation By Their Parents Are Less Likely To

Children who are taught moderation by their parents are less likely to experience binge drinking activity in later life. (Malyutina S, 2001)

What interventions are practical?
Having briefly examined the evidence that surrounds the culture of binge drinking, we should turn our attention to just what measures would it be appropriate to recommend to the Government of the day?

There is some evidence to suggest that if the drinking laws allowed very restricted drinking periods, that this might actually artificially encourage binge drinking. (Moore, L et al 1998). Unfortunately there is no evidence that we can find that will allow us to conclude that the converse is true.

If we consider the paper by Kypri K (et al 2003), this helps us further as this specifically examined the efficacy of some of the various measures that could be of help in this situation. Their survey cohort was nearly 2000 and, in brief, their results showed that their SBI intervention (screening and brief intervention) policy was both practical and effective.

The rationale was to identify people with hazardous drinking patterns and the subsequent provision of advice on how to deal with it. The authors quote a meta-analysis of similar work (Moyer J et al., 2002), which showed both a significant reduction of alcohol and a similar reduction in alcohol-related problems in non-treatment seeking individuals, over a 12 month follow up period. This intervention is noteworthy if for no other reason that over 82% of people with hazardous drinking patterns indicated that the intervention was favoured.

This intervention was designed to be part of a primary healthcare team approach to the problem, but a significant number of General Practitioners felt that they did not have the time to adequately tackle the problem. (Beich et al. 2002). The overall results showed that 94% of all the respondents who were found to be at high risk by the initial screening questions, subsequently consented to receiving the intervention and follow up assessments

When self help groups were analysed they were much less effective,(Koski-Jannes, A et al 2001), mainly on the grounds that the participants were primarily those that already recognised that they had a problem drinking pattern. As we have discussed in the previous paper Kypri K (et al 2003), the people that need to be targeted are those who might not otherwise seek any help

Advice to the Government

On the basis of our brief research into this field, we would have to conclude that we have not found many interventions that are both generally applicable and also have a beneficial effect. The arguments that have been put forward in respect of shortening the opening hours to minimise the problem are equally as fallacious as those that suggest that longer hours will facilitate binge drinking.