Are there other positive outcomes from behavior counseling interventions to reduce risky/harmful alcohol use?
Few fair- to good-quality studies in adults addressed intervention effects such as health care utilization, 111, 116, 118, 121, 124, 166 or cost effectiveness. Of all the studies that examined health care utilization, only 1 found reduced self-reported hospital days among males in the intervention group compared with controls at 12 months of followup. 111 At longer-term followup (48 months) in the same study, males and females in the intervention group reported significantly fewer hospital days compared with controls. 108 These data reflected self-reported estimates of use rather than analyses of administrative data, as did 1 other study. 124, 166 Out of 100 articles identified in the literature search for economic studies addressing counseling interventions to reduce risky/harmful alcohol use, 14 were retrieved, and 12 of these were excluded: seven were not original economic analyses, 167 – 173 two included only costs and no measures of effectiveness 174, 175 two examined non-primary
