Online and face-to-face extended brief interventions for harmful alcohol use: client characteristics, attendance and treatment outcomes

Online service delivery is an alternative to face-to-face interventions for harmful alcohol use. However, little evidence evaluates its relative efficacy, or the demographic characteristics of clients accessing these services. Archival demographic and treatment outcome data collected from 82 clients who undertook online or face-to-face Extended Brief Interventions (EBI) were analysed. Measures included a pre-treatment Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) and pre/post well-being and drinking behaviour measures. Clients in the online sample were on average younger, scored higher on the AUDIT, were in work/training more days a month and attended a greater number of sessions. After controlling for differences in treatment mode and age, online EBI led to greater increases in quality of life and fewer drinking days. Online EBI may provide an important alternate service delivery mode for harmful alcohol use, which may be accessed more frequently by younger and higher risk clients. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Counselling Psychology Quarterly on 15th December 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09515070.2018.1555516