Have you ever thought about your drinking habits? Did you know you could still be at risk of alcohol-related injury even though you’re not dependent on alcohol?

Well a VGH program called Screening Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is looking to start that conversation and intervene early — before it’s too late.

“We do a really good job of intervening with patients who are alcohol dependent and now we can say that we also do a good job of intervening with patients who drink at amounts greater than those suggested by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) National Low Risk Drinking Guidelines,” says Zahra Hussein, injury prevention program lead for VGH Trauma Services.

“We aim to prevent an injury related to alcohol, or more a severe injury if the patient has already come in with an alcohol-related injury.”

As Zahra explains, SBIRT has been active at VGH since October 2014, and we’re just the first of many VCH trauma sites that will eventually adopt the program. GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre is currently using SBIRT with its clients.

Top honours at conference

Proud to display their SBRIT award-winning poster (l to r): Heather Wong, Erin Shangguan, Deanna Fong, Rocio Martinez, Zahra Hussein and Nasira Lakha.

Recently, the VGH Trauma Services Team presented the SBIRT initiative at the Annual Trauma Association of Canada Scientific Conference in Calgary — and won top honours for best oral Rapid Fire presentation, as well as best poster.

Nasira Lakha, manager of the Trauma Program, delivered the award-winning presentation.

“It was very cool to be recognized,” she says of the award. “But what’s better is that we’ve had a lot of inquiries from other centres across Canada about our work to see how we do it and how they can do it. We’ve engaged with a lot of people.”

Evidence supports alcohol screening

“There’s a lot of evidence to support the effectiveness of alcohol screening and brief interventions,” says Zahra. “It’s a standard of care in trauma centres in the U.S., as well as in many other countries. It’s been studied for over 20 years and we should be implementing this evidence-based program.”

Although application of SBIRT is still relatively new at VGH, Zahra and Nasira feel the program has made a difference for patients.

“You might not realize you’re a high-risk drinker because you’re not drinking every day,” explains Nasira. “We hope we can increase a patient’s insight into and awareness about substance use and behavioural change to prevent future injury. It’s about changing drinking patterns. It’s about starting that conversation and putting that seed in people’s minds so they start thinking ‘Oh my god, yeah, I am drinking a lot on the weekends.’”