Projects

Project Description

Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) comprise various conditions like hazardous drinking, harmful drinking,
and dependent drinking reflecting progressively more serious forms.(1) AUDs contribute
substantially to disability and premature mortality, accounting for disability and years of life lost(1).
A recent national survey in India reported a treatment gap of 86% for AUDs in the previous one
year.(2) Brief psychological treatments for harmful drinking, based on motivational enhancement,
are acceptable, feasible, and cost-effective, even when delivered by non-specialist health workers in
routine health-care settings in previously untreated populations(3,4)
AUDs could affect the wellbeing of one’s spouse and the family. One of the frequently reported
consequences is intimate partner violence (IPV). CMDs such as anxiety and depression have been
identified among spouses/intimate partners of heavy alcohol users(5,6).Nadkarni et al (7) showed
training CHW to administer brief interventions for hazardous drinking showed effectiveness at 12
months, while mediators like readiness to change was examined only in a sub-sample of subjects.
So this study examines the effects of such mediators and can help to scale up the services at
primary care level using non specialist in the background scarcity of MHPs. This may help to
address the treatment gap and implement the services.
Aims
To study the effectiveness of training the health workers at PHC in identifying and delivering brief
intervention among hazardous drinking males and identifying depression in their spouses.
Primary outcome: Readiness to change
Secondary outcome: reduction drinking quantity, reduction in drinking intensity, reduction in
severity of alcohol, depressive scores in the spouses

Study Design: It will be a pre and post quasi experimental design.
This study will be carried out in 2 PHCs of the rural field practice area of St John’s medical College
Hospital namely Dommasandra and Sarjapur of Rural Bengaluru, Karnataka.