Project SHARE (Senior Health and Alcohol Risk Education)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 2

Conditions: Alcohol Consumption

Treatments: Behavioral: Patient-provider education

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT00107640

5R01AA013990-02 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

NIAAATAL13990

R01AA013990 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Older adults become more sensitive to alcohol, and alcohol also interacts adversely with their common medical conditions and medications. The aim of Project SHARE (Senior Health and Alcohol Risk Education) is to see whether patient and provider education can decrease risky alcohol use and reduce health care costs in persons 60 years of age and older.

Full description

Alcohol use in the elderly is an increasingly important public health problem. Alcohol-related risks and problems in older persons may come from the interaction between alcohol and diminished health or medication use. The proposed study is a randomized trial of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an integrated patient-provider intervention to prevent risky alcohol use among older adults. The intervention will include a tested screening and education system that was developed especially for older adults and their providers, supplemented by a well-established intervention for physicians. The proposed research design involves randomization of 31 primary care physicians in seven clinics and their eligible patients aged 60+ to the intervention versus "usual care."

Enrollment: 1,186 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 60+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 60 and over
• At-risk drinkers
• Patient of participating physician

Exclusion criteria

• Severe cognitive impairment
• Terminally ill or deceased
• Expected to move out of area or into nursing home within following year
• Could not fill out written surveys in English
• Likely dependent drinker

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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1,186 participants in 2 patient groups

Usual care

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients not assigned to the experimental condition received usual care, which may or may not have included alcohol education.

Patient-provider education

Experimental group

Description:

Experimental patients received an intervention consisting of the following components: written reports and educational materials, a telephone health educator intervention (at baseline, 3 and 6 months), and a brief provider intervention.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Patient-provider education